Walking Distance
by wellficme
Summary: Daryl D/OC short story. Set after season 3, prior to season 4. After an accidental run in with The Governor's men, Daryl meets a lone survivor and her child. Trying to convince her to join his group at the prison proves to be harder than he expected. Rated M for adult themes and eventual erotic literature.
1. Chapter 1

_***Okay, I am too excited about the approaching season 4 of The Walking Dead. I can't wait! I have written this short story from just the season 4 trailer and sneak preview. I am POPPING these chapters out for you guys, rapid fire.**_

_**The producers said there will have been a 6-7 month gap between seasons 3 and 4, and those who read my previous story 'Daryl and Rebecca' will know how I love to fill a hole ;-)**_

_**This is just a short story. A little fic before the excitement of season 4. Enjoy! **_

_**Standard warning: my stories can be dark sometimes. Not to mention, erotic literature and adult themes.**_

_**Disclaimer: You know I don't own anything. TWD and its characters are all AMC and Robert Kirkman.**_

Another run. Another run into another town. But now the towns are getting bigger. The suburbs bring greater rewards but the risks are greater with it. Bigger towns, bigger stores, bigger scores, bigger herds, bigger threat.

"Why did you have to come? Can't you ever just once stay at the prison?" The Asian man asked the slight brunette as he wrapped her calf in a tight makeshift bandage, tearing strips from his discarded flannel shirt. The steady drip of blood from the bullet wound in her calf was going to draw the 'walkers' right to their hiding place. The gas station bathroom with the single high, small window, was a death trap. No way out but the same way they came running in through, slamming the door and locking it with the deadbolt.

"You know me, I can't be told." She replied with a weak smile.

"This isn't funny Maggie." He shot back, eyes dark and sad. This was no time to let down your guard.

"Don't you think I know that, Glenn." The room died into silence as their eyes said what their mouths didn't have to.

They were in trouble.

…...

"Anybody hit?" Michonne asked, looking around the small group of people she hid in the craft store with.

Surrounded by balls of wool and sewing machines, the undisturbed store was dark and quiet. For the 'new' people, this was some of the first real danger they had been in since joining the prison.

Sasha shook her head and looked around at the others.

"I don't think so." Said Tyreese.

Michonne looked around the half a dozen faces, shadowed in the darkness, weary of anyone with a pained expression. They appeared ok. It would seem that none of her small pocket of people were hit by the spray of bullets from The Governor's men. The dark woman returned her eyes to the store front, contemplating their next move.

…...

Daryl, Bob, and Karen had seen the whole scene from their position in the alley way.

Martinez and some other men, had driven past the store front in their military hummer and shot up the glass windows. In their second pass, they fired upon Michonne and the bulk of their group, who had made it down the street and around the corner to the right, before the large vehicle had caught up to them. Maggie and Glenn had taken off down the same road, but got cut off from the group by a deafening spray of bullets and were forced, by the pursuing vehicle, to run down a road to the left.

"Look like them fucker's 'ave cut 'n run." Daryl turned and spoke, rage bubbling beneath his composed exterior, unable to hear the large vehicle anymore. Bob and Karen nodded in agreement. "All that noise, gonna bring walkers to town. You two go get the trucks. One a ya go get Michonne and them lot, other go down that road." He said, nodding to the side street Glenn and Maggie had ran to. "I'm gonna go ahead, see if I can find Glenn 'n Maggie."

Bob and Karen glanced quickly at each other.

"Jus' do it!" Daryl shot in angrily. Leadership issues aside, their group did what it had to when someone gave an order. Just sometimes people needed to be reminded with a sharp tongue. Daryl's voice got the pair moving and they turned back, towards the rear of the building. Shaking his head, Daryl peered around the brick corner, making sure the road was clear. A few walkers down the road a bit, making their way towards the noise made from the cracking automatic weapons. No immediate threat.

Daryl raised his crossbow to his eye line and took off in a jog towards the side road where he had seen his family run.

The road was clear but for a few scattered cars. Daryl continued his pace, looking for any sign from Glenn and Maggie. A hundred yards or so down the paved street Daryl spotted something that made his stomach turn to ice. A small puddle and a large smear of crimson blood trickled, with the slope of the bitumen, toward the gutter. Following the trail of large drips and splatters, Daryl raised his crossbow and jogged faster down the street.

It appeared to Daryl that the blood trail was leading to the stand alone gas station at the end of the street. The one with four walkers gathering at the station's bathroom, and more coming from surrounding buildings.

A sudden and loud crack echoed down the street. Daryl stopped and put his hand to the sting at his right side. Pulling it away for a quick glance, knowing already what he would see, his hand was wet and warm and red.

The large military truck pulled out from a side alley in front of Daryl, to his right. He fell to his knees in the street. The shock and pain suddenly taking his strength and dropping him to the ground, as the Hummer reved loudly and tore away from the town.

The agonising death of a stomach wound was The Governor's favourite, ensuring his victim would either have to take their own life with a bullet to the head or eventually die and turn in to the monsters that haunt this world.

The hummer was long in the distance but the gunshot had drawn the attention of the amassing numbers of local walkers. Daryl fell forward, one hand on his bleeding wound, the other shaking beneath him, bracing him from falling face down to the hard, hot surface of the black road. The walkers, drawn to the smell of an open wound and blood in the air, started to close in towards him.

A black Chevrolet El Camino pulled out from a side street and stopped beside Daryl. He turned his head weakly as black spots started to clot his vision. The passenger side door, opened from the inside, swung out towards him.

"Hey! Get in now!" The woman's voice yelled at him. "GET IN!"

Daryl drew a breath and fought away the creeping darkness in his eyes. The car was close enough that, with one hard push to his feet, he was able to dive for the open door and land half in the car. Her hand shot forward and grabbed on to the collar of his leather vest, pulling him in best she could.

The car was already in gear and she took off before Daryl was all in. She gave a yank of his clothes and returned her hand to the column shift. Changing to the next gear, she drove past the gas station where, unknown to her, Glenn and Maggie were hiding.

She again grabbed on to Daryl as she turned the car down a street to the right. Using the momentum of the turn, she hauled the heavy, now unconscious, muscular frame of Daryl, further into the car. His feet now in, the door swung shut and closed with a snap. She managed to pull his head to her lap, and quickly glancing from the road, she looked at the face of the man between her and the steering wheel. She put her hand to his mouth and checked to make sure he was still breathing.

He was still alive. With a temporary wave of relief, she returned her hand to the steering wheel.

Her stomach felt like it was at the back of her throat as she considered her next move.

She had been sitting in her car. Hidden down an alley beside a building, she had been looking through the small stockpile of supplies she had collected when the loud gun fire had exploded through the quiet streets. Ducking down in her seat, she heard a large vehicle drive past her El Camino undetected. It stopped somewhere out of her sight, but had not gone all together. Peeking out over the dash of the car minutes later, she saw a man with a crossbow jogging down the road. She didn't move and he didn't see her, too distracted by something on the ground in front of him. The last crack of the rifle out of sight zapped through her, turning her guts to stone. She heard the roar of the large vehicle as it left the town, her thoughts jagged and disjointed in her mind. Torn between staying hidden and getting out of this apparent war zone, her hand moved by itself to the ignition. Turning the engine over, she placed her child on the seat beside her, and drew the seatbelt around him securely.

As she pulled from the alley, the shuddering body of the man with the crossbow, consumed her vision. He was on his hands and knees, and before she could think about it, she had pulled the car over beside him, despite the closing crowd of 'biters'. She threw open the door and screamed at him to get him in the car. Releasing his seatbelt, she moved the child beside her on the bench seat to her knee, wedging the small boy between her and the door.

The man dove into the car and she dragged him in, as best she could, by his biker vest. Getting out of town fast, she drove to her place, not stopping to think about her own actions.


	2. Chapter 2

Carrie was a strong woman. She had to be. Everything she had survived through, keeping her and her child safe through hell on earth, had moulded her into a hard and uncompromising woman.

Except where her son was concerned. Looking into her child's eyes, the same deep green as her own, her heart was soft and she was just a mother. He was her anchor, her reason to keep going and the only thing stopping her from putting her gun in her mouth.

The outside world had taught her hard lessons. The people who were left to inherit the earth were deceitful and deadly. None could be trusted. So she turned away from the world and locked herself and her son in their fortress. She thought about how she had picked up this stranger and her stomach threatened to empty itself. She had brought an unknown danger to her very home.

The property was a white weatherboard, beaten up old house, complete with peeling paint and an overgrown yard. Small and well hidden, far from the road. It was surrounded entirely by a chain link fence, topped with razor wire and chained with a heavy padlock. Not your standard cottage in the woods.

The man beside her was still unconscious, but alive. His blood had seeped over the edge of the leather bench seat and was pooling on the car floor. She glanced at him warily as she pulled the car up in front of the locked gate. Sliding out from under his head, she opened the car door and hoisted the small boy up on to her hip as she stood. Unlocking the gate, she swung it open all the way and jogged back to the car. She drove forward to the house and again got out to lock the gate behind them.

Secure in her home, she ran to the front door and did a quick check to make sure her house was still all clear, her boy still on her hip. She placed the small child on the couch in the small lounge and ran back out to her car, to the man.

She pulled open the passenger side door and looked in at the prone figure on his stomach and his wound. She hesitated. Her thoughts still a jumble in her mind, she just went blank and her body acted for her.

…...

The light from the small flame, made Daryl's eyes ache as he opened them. A candle on a small table, beside the large bed he lay on, was the only light in the whole room. Though hazy eyes and a throbbing pain in his temples, Daryl observed the bedroom around him. It was a bare bones room. Just the large wooden bed he lay in, an armchair and a tall, polished timber wardrobe furnished the space. The two windows were boarded up with half a door each, supplied from the room's entry itself by the look of it. Only the four inch gap at the top would allow in any light. It was dark because night had already fallen.

It hurt to breathe, and to move was worse. Daryl went to put his hands to the bandaged wound at his stomach but found his right hand to be cuffed to the dark wooden bed head. The fact that he was alive wasn't as much comfort as it should have been. Searching his cracked memory he could only think of The Governor and the blood trail he had been following in town. The surge of rage and fear for his friends bought a hot, sick feeling to the back of Daryl's throat.

Rolling slowly to his side, his wound causing him to seethe as the pain threatened to send him back into unconsciousness. Knowing it was pointless, he gave a small tug on the handcuffs anyway. The small knocking noise on the wood made him still and listen to the house for anyone who may have heard him.

A soft voice spoke in another room. The words were indistinguishable but it was definitely a woman. He turned his attention back to the small table and the candle to see if there was any chance of using either as a weapon.

A quiet click noise drew Daryl's attention back to the open doorway. A woman was standing silently just inside the door frame, her cocked rifle pointed straight at him.

Catching his attention, she walked silently into the room, keeping him in her sights. She was set on edge. He hadn't turned into a biter, but that didn't come as much relief. If he had turned she would have shot him and disposed of him with the rest. Now she had a real problem. What to do with a living, human threat?

Daryl eyed her warily, but didn't move. He could see she was intense and didn't want to give her an itchy trigger finger.

She considered him for a minute down the barrel of her rifle, before nodding at his cuffed wrist. Daryl lifted his right hand, tugging at the cuffs, showing her they were secure. Daryl began to suspect that maybe she was more scared of him than he was of her.

Her green eyes glowed in the candle light. She had straight dark hair that was pulled back in a tight ponytail at the top of her long neck. She wore a white singlet, a 'wife-beater', over a pair of black denim jeans and boots. Tall and lean, and severe. Her eyes, so dilated in the dark room, looked like large black stones.

She backed back out of the room. Daryl heard her walk down the hallway beside the bedroom to a room at the back of the house. She returned moments later. She held a plate of food with a fork in her left hand and beretta in her right hand. Wordlessly, she looked to the plate of stew in her hand, then to her gun, and then settled her intense gaze back on Daryl's face.

Daryl didn't move as she stepped forward, placing the plate of food and utensil on the bedside table. She then pulled a plastic bottle of water from her waistband at her back and put it next to the plate. A small white pill she held in her palm was also placed on the table and she stepped back. Pulling the handcuff key from her pocket, she tossed it onto the bed beside Daryl, quickly raising her hand to cup the beretta, keeping her aim high at his head.

Daryl knew she was going to stand there the whole time, ready to shoot if he tried anything. He felt like a caged animal and it was making him angry. He reluctantly picked up the key and turned it in the handcuffs, releasing himself from the steel.

"Got a name?" He croaked as he tried to sit up. The world spun when he dropped his feet to the floor beside the bed, but he held on to the firm mattress and shook away the blotting darkness from his eyes. Rolling softly away from his injured side, he managed to sit up slowly.

"Don't talk, eat." Was all the response she gave him.

Daryl held onto his wound as he leaned over and picked up the plate. He glared at her and brought the forkful of the stew to his mouth, eating as instructed. The sweet tasting meat was definitely rabbit, but it was cooked so soft with vegetables and rice. Daryl cleaned his plate as his captor kept watch. He put the plate back down and picked up the bottle of water. The water was slightly warm, but it satisfied the ache he had behind his eyes from dehydration.

Eyeing the pill, Daryl recognised it as 'Oxycodone'. He was reluctant to take the tablet knowing it would dull him, but at the same time the pain in his side made his head swim and threatened to bring his dinner back up. He downed the pill with a mouthful of water, eyeing the woman over the top of the bottle.

"Key." She said, holding out her hand for Daryl to throw her the handcuff keys. Daryl considered throwing her the keys and making a run for the door, but the spasm in his side shot down any plans for a quick escape. He thought maybe he could make a lunge for her and take the beretta, but the idea disappeared when his attention was drawn to a noise from the living room. A small child's voice was babbling in the other room. Daryl looked at the woman in front of him. Her thoughts were quickly being turned to the child in the other room, as she tried to stay focussed on the danger in front of her. Her eyes flicked to the open doorframe and back to Daryl. He could see her jaw tighten and tick as her hand curled a little tighter on the beretta.

Daryl picked up the key and tossed it gently to her open hand. She snatched it out of the air and motioned with her gun at the cuffs still attached to the bed head. Daryl didn't like it, the thought of being cuffed again to the bed, but he went along with it. A small part of him was glad she wasn't stupid enough to trust a stranger in this fucked up world. He bit at the inside of his mouth as he lay back on the bed again and wrapped the metal cuff around his wrist. He did it up firmly and showed her. She hesitantly put the gun in the back of her pants and got the plate from the side table. Without the gun aimed at him, Daryl saw her for what she really was. A scared mother.

She left the room with a concerned glance back at him as Daryl rest his throbbing head back on the pillow.

…...

A child's soft giggle in another room, woke Daryl from his fitful sleep. He heard the same woman speak muted words to the kid, drawing a second tinkling laugh from the babe.

Daryl recalled last night when the woman had snuck into the bedroom and sat in the soft armchair, watching him. Daryl hadn't opened his eyes and he feigned sleep, listening for her movements. She was as silent as he on her feet, moving quietly in the small room, he presence only just tickling into Daryl's finely honed senses. She sat in the armchair, and Daryl felt the heat from her eyes prickle on his skin. He was laying on his back, holding onto the wound dressing, his right hand above his head, with the handcuff to the timber bed head.

A few minutes passed silently. Daryl considered talking to her. Just as he was about to open his eyes, she got to her feet and left the room silently. Daryl turned his head and looked at the vacated arm chair. It seemed as though she had decided against shooting him in his sleep and he closed his eyes again, listening for her silent return in case she changed her mind.

Now that light was creeping over the boarded up windows and morning was here, he could hear the woman and child walking around the house. He tapped the cuffs heavily on the headboard to get the woman's attention again, knowing she would be listening. She spoke softly to the child, leaving him in the lounge, and returned to the doorway of Daryl's bedroom, beretta in hand.

"Need to take a piss." Daryl grunted.

"What do you think I left the bottle for?" She shot back softly.

"Ain't pissin' in a bottle." He sneered.

"Piss in your pants then." She said, turning from the room.

"Ay!" He called. "I ain't gonna hurtcha."

She reappeared in the door way, eyeing him from the end of the bed. Daryl shrugged and gestured to the cuffs, trying to say he was still locked to the bed. She walked to the other side of the room. Daryl noticed the slightest limp in her walk, one she was obviously trying to hide. She sat in the large armchair again. Eying him silently.

"Where is this all goin'?" He asked perturbed.

"Now that you're awake, I'll take you back to that town today." She replied softly.

"What happened anyway?" Daryl asked, not moving from his position on the bed. She was finally speaking to him, he didn't want to frighten her off.

She puffed a little sigh and thought about her words. "Some guy in a hummer shot you. I found you and brought you here. I took out the bullet and you lived." Short story.

"Yesterday?" Daryl asked.

"Three days ago." She said with a soft tilt of her head, like she was trying to make sense of it all herself.

Daryl lay his head back into the pillow. Knowing his people, they were probably going mental looking for him by now.

"Are you in pain?" Carrie asked, showing the first sign of any concern for Daryl's wellbeing.

"Nah, 's okay." He swallowed dryly. She sat forward in the chair, her elbows resting on her knees, handling the beretta. She rubbed at her eyes with her long fingers and then looked back to Daryl on the bed. He didn't speak, just watched her as her bleary eyes squinted at him, trying to focus.

She sat silently watching him for a few moments before getting to her feet and walking slowly to Daryl on the bed. He tensed as she approached and stopped just outside of arm's reach from the bedside. She tucked the Beretta into the back of her jeans and fished the handcuff key from her pocket.

"Don't try anything. I will kill you." She hissed as she passed him the key. Daryl took the key from her fingers and went to unlock the cuff at his wrist. "The other one." She instructed. Daryl pulled his lips into a firm line and nodded his head, releasing the cuff from the bed head instead.

She took the key back and picked up his cuffed hand, pulling it to his other, locking them together with a soft click. Her hands were long and firm, Daryl observed as her slightly calloused fingertips grazed his palm. Holding on to the steel and putting a hand firmly to his hard shoulder, she helped Daryl lift off the bed and sit up with a pained grunt at the stabbing ache from his gun shot wound.

Sitting up, he looked her in the eyes and gave her a short nod of thanks. She stood back and gave him time and room to get to his feet. His hand shot protectively to his side as his head swam a little. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.

"You are in pain. It doesn't have to be 'Oxy' if you are concerned about sleeping again." She read his thoughts. "How about …paracetamol?" Daryl gave her another nod and she walked him to the bedroom door.

Her voice suddenly turned hard again as she stepped past him. "Don't even look at the kid." She warned. Her voice was a soft threatening hiss of a venomous snake.

Daryl's eyes shot to the beretta tucked into the back of her jeans. He could grab it, but he didn't. Somewhat cursing himself as he passed up the opportunity, she again stepped behind him, pointing him in the direction of the bathroom. He did as he was told and kept his eyes in front as they passed the lounge where he knew the kid was sitting on the floor, in front of the couch.

He entered the small room and she closed the door behind him. He listened to her standing outside the toilet door as he relieved himself, his hands still cuffed. Daryl washed his hands and face with the small bucket of water beside the sink, then stepped back from the cracked mirror and looked at his reflection. He was paler than usual and a little sickly looking. His dried bloodied shirt was stiff and uncomfortable against his skin. He lifted the hem and looked at the clean dressing below his rib cage.

The bathroom door suddenly sprang open and the woman looked wild eyed at Daryl. He dropped his shirt and held out his open hands, showing her he wasn't doing anything. Her hand dropped from the handle of the gun at her lower back, and her eyes softened slightly as she tucked her mouth into a tight line, realising her mistake. She looked at his bloody clothes and where his wound was underneath.

"I'm not a doctor or anything. I just dug the bullet out and stitched you up as best I could." She spoke plainly. "Sorry, but you are going to end up with a big scar."

Daryl scoffed at her words. Clearly she hadn't seen further up his chest or his back. "Its fine." He replied to her puzzled look. He followed her out of the small room and back to the bedroom silently.

"When 're we goin' back to town?" He asked as he sat back on the edge of the bed.

"You have something to eat and I'll go get everything ready. We go today." She stepped towards him with the handcuff key and reached for his right hand. Her long fingers wrapped around his large hand and softly turned it and the cuff over. She unlocked the steel and picked up his other hand, cuffing it again to the bed head. She left the room, watching him out the side of her eye. Returning minutes later, she had a bowl of warm oats with a blob of blackberry conserve. The tall woman placed it on the bedside table with another bottle of water and two small tablets.

"Thanks…" Daryl said, leaving the sentence open as he picked up the bottle and pills.

"Carrie." She finished.

"Daryl." He supplied before taking a drink of water.


	3. Chapter 3

**_*Hey guys, thanks for the follows. Expect daily chapters._**

**_To Carriesque- Hello again. Glad you are liking the OC, so far. ;-) Interesting times ahead. Love hearing what you think._**

**_To Leyshla Gisel- gahh... your comments are a little confusing. I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or genuine. I do appreciate the r&r, but could you elaborate a little. If you are not enjoying it yet, I promise it gets better. I don't like to be an obvious writer, my stories are laced with little clues about future story events. Just give it a few chapters to warm up. I look forward to hearing more from you and thank you for the reviews and follow._**

Daryl was still cuffed when she led him out of the house later that morning, closing the door behind them. The muted grey light of the overcast day, reflecting the quiet tension and apprehensive expression of his subjugator beside him. His hands in front of him, he walked warily down the steps to the dull black El Camino, out the front of the house.

Daryl looked around the open yard and the chain link fence. He saw the small pile of three or four dispatched walker corpses near the front gate, and assumed that clearing the fence line was part of what Carrie had meant when she said she would 'get everything ready'. She opened the passenger side door for him and stood back. He looked into the vehicle and saw the small boy already in his seatbelt in the middle of the car.

Daryl turned to look back to the mother behind him, where she stood with fire burning in her eyes, her hands now pointing her beretta at his face. He stepped backwards into the car, keeping his hands visible and his eyes on hers.

Carrie drew the cuff keys from her pocket and gave them to Daryl. "Cuff yourself to the door handle, please." She said with a serious face and stern hushed voice. Daryl regrettably complied, unlocking the cuff and threading the open steel through the passenger handle and clicking it again closed around his wrist. He followed her with his eyes as she closed the door and walked to the back of the utility. Watching her in the side mirror, he saw Carrie pull a black bandana from the back pocket of her grey jeans and look at it in her hand. A moments contemplation and she tucked it back into her pocket, then looked at the back of Daryl's head in the rear window. Daryl subtly grimaced to himself as she walked around the car to the front gate and unlocked the heavy chains.

Carrie returned to the driver's side and got into the black car. She turned over the engine and dropped it into gear. Pulling out the gate, she stopped to lock it behind them, then, returning to the utility, proceeded down the overgrown scrub road.

They drove slowly in silence, down the narrow track and the open road, for about half an hour before the edges of the township came into view.

She approached cautiously, looking for any sign of the hummer or Daryl's people. While the El Camino was clean and in good condition, the exhaust was still much louder than she would have preferred at the moment. She kept it to a soft idle and crawled down the deserted streets.

"Can you go back to the gas station near where ya found me?" Daryl asked, making Carrie jump. She looked over at Daryl with wide eyes, and he looked back into her worried green depths. He bit at the inside of his mouth and nodded a sort of apology for frightening her, before turning his sight back to the town around them. She kept to the edges of the town and made her way to the gas station.

As Carrie rolled the car, quiet as she could, around the corner, two men started running towards them from about the same place she had scooped up Daryl, guns raised. She stomped on the brake and looked to man beside her.

"'s ok. They're with me." He said, nodding at Glenn and Rick. Carrie wasn't comforted by his words as they were still running towards them with their rifles. She turned the vehicle so that the men in the street would be able to see Daryl in the passenger seat. They slowed to a jog but kept the weapons trained on the car.

Carrie passed the key across to Daryl, over her son's head, and gestured for him to uncuff himself. He did so, quickly, passing the steel rings and keys back to her with a subconscious rub to the wrists. "Thanks." He said quietly as he opened the El Camino door.

Her green eyes glowered at his voice. She furrowed her brow and tightened her mouth. She nodded softly and looked to the men standing 20 yards out the window. Daryl got out of the vehicle, holding his side, and closed the door behind him. He stepped in front of the window and blocked Carrie and the kid from the sight of the approaching Rick and Glenn.

He knocked on the roof of the car as he walked away. Carrie put the car back into gear and turned the vehicle around, watching the two men help Daryl back to their own truck. Daryl watched her, over his shoulder, as she drove off.

…...

The truck caught up with a brown station wagon in front of the shot up, large department store. Rick pulled up beside Michonne and Carol at the back of the vehicle and let them know what happened. He said that Daryl was ok and had been dropped off by some woman in a utility. Carol looked into the truck with her soft watery eyes at Daryl and he nodded back at her with a tight-lipped smile. Carol had convince Michonne to take her with them on the search for Daryl. Now that he was safely found, the women returned to their vehicle and followed the truck back to the prison.

After they passed through the few walkers and the steel gates of their prison home, they drove up to the inner yard gates. Glenn helped Daryl from the truck, being grumbled at and told to 'fuck off' and he walked inside the building to, cell block 'C'.

Eventually getting the stubborn man to a bunk, Hershel took a look at Daryl's stiches and wound. He pointed out that Daryl had a bandaid he hadn't noticed on his upper arm. There was a small cotton ball under the tape with a dot of blood. She had injected him with something and hadn't mentioned it. He scowled at the docs suggestion of a sedative and said it was more likely an antibiotic. From the short glance around her house that morning he had surmised that she was pretty well stocked, which might include a full medical accumulation. Hershel said, other than obvious blood loss, he was in good health and agreed, that if he wasn't feeling any effects of an infection after three days, he was probably right.

…...

Daryl was sitting at the bolted down table and chairs in the open gen-pop room beside the cell block, when Carol came and sat beside him.

"You had us all scared you know." She said quietly. "We thought The Governor had taken you." Carol picked up Daryl's hand and caught his eye. "What happened."

"Martinez was in the town. He shot me and left me to turn." Daryl said, letting Carol hold on to his hand. "The woman, Carrie, scooped me up and took me back to her place. She patched me up and let me heal for a few days." He shook off Carol's hand and put his palms to his eyes, not mentioning the part about being held at gun point. He rubbed at his face, troubled by his thoughts. He pushed into his eyes until white spots started to cloud behind his eye lids.

"You're thinking of going back out there?" Carol asked, uncertain, and looking warily at the small red ring around his wrists from the cuffs.

"Yeah." He said behind his hands.

"Why?" She whispered.

Daryl was a different person from who he once was. Changed by loss. Changed by the death of his brother and another who he had loved. He had opened up to the new family he had, but none more so than Carol. She had become someone he could talk to without judgement or fear of rejection. They had both grieved the loss of Carol's daughter and it had given them a bond, of sorts, many months ago now. For some reason, this conversation was making him feel troubled, and he turned away from her.

"Cause I haf'ta, tha's all." He snapped at her as he stood and walked away to the yard exit.

…...

Rick saw Daryl standing at the fence line, looking out to the road. Carol had found him after his watch shift had ended and told him that Daryl was planning on going back out to the woman. Rick had told her that if that was what Daryl chose, he couldn't stop him from leaving.

"Just talk to him Rick." Carol had replied angrily.

Now he walked up behind Daryl and cleared his throat, letting the man know he was there to talk to him.

Daryl just glanced briefly to his right where Rick stood, and returned his gaze to road.

"I'm not tellin' you to stay, Daryl." Rick spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. "Just at least wait until you are healed up."

Daryl grunted quietly as a reply. "My watch is startin'." He picked up his rifle and hitched his crossbow back up his shoulder, as he walked through the chain link gate and down the dirt path to the guard tower.

…...

Daryl had waited as Rick had asked him. As much as Rick was taking more of a backseat these days, Daryl couldn't help but listen to the man. He had led them through the most difficult time of the entire apocalypse. Helped them get this home they now shared with more and more people. Become a brother to him. And out of respect for him, Daryl had waited until Hershel removed his stitches four days later.

He now stood, astride his bike, looking out to the road. Daryl was avoiding the eyes of Carol and Glenn standing to the side, watching him holster his crossbow onto the forks at the front. They had both protested his leaving.

"I'll be back tomorrow. Jus' chill." He muttered to them before starting the loud motorcycle.

Carol's eyes watered as she watched him pull away from them to the gate. Carl pulled open the heavy steel gates and Daryl rode out, disappearing down the road.

…...

Daryl rode around the outskirts of the town and easily found the street leading to Carrie's place. He found the dirt track, though it was harder than he thought it would be. He hadn't noticed when she drove him back to the town how overgrown the entrance to the track was and now only spotted it on his second pass because he was searching specifically for it.

The loud motorcycle rumbled down the gravel towards the weatherboard in the woods. 10 minutes or so along, he saw the chain link fence emerge before him from the tree lined track. Six walkers were patrolling the fence, clawing their feeble attempt to breach the wire. The sound of the bike attracted their attention and they began to move from their scattered positions towards Daryl and the front gate. Daryl kept the bike running and gave the motor a brief rev to make the household aware of his presence. It worked.

Carrie, wild eyed, came running from the front door, rifle pointed straight at his chest, ignoring the walkers at the fence. She wore her brown hair pulled back into a loose knot at the top of her neck. A dark grey singlet top and her black jeans, with a pair of boots shrugged on but not tied up, laces just tucked in the top. Her face was flushed as she stomped furiously towards Daryl. Carrie's green eyes glowed as she squinted into the glare of the sunny day outside her stronghold, her delicate face was severe and angry. Her tall, slender body shook and the rifle looked almost comical in her thin long hands.

"What are you doing here?!" She yelled furiously at Daryl, over the sound of his rumbling motor.

"I'm here cuz you wanted me here!" He shouted back, not angry, just forceful.

"What are you talking about?" She stomped at the ground and raised the rifle to her shoulder.

"Don't bullshit me, Carrie." He replied to her. "Ya gonna open the gate 'fore I get bit?" He glanced at the closest walker, pulling his knife from it's sheath as it was now only a few short yards away.

Carrie followed his eyes to the scraggy 'biter' and swung her rifle to it, instead of at Daryl. She shot the dead blonde in the head, spraying a littering of skull pieces behind her, and turned her aim back to him. She closed her eyes for a second and bit at her lip. She had the keys in her back pocket.

Slinging the rifle over her shoulder, she pulled the small ring of keys from her jeans and quickly unlocked the heavy bolt with a twist of her wrist. Daryl, sliding his knife back in to the leather holder, sat back on the bike and idled forward through the gate as Carrie swung it open for him. She slammed it shut behind him and chained it back up before the next walker could get his hand through the gap between the gate and the fence.

As Daryl parked the bike to the side and grabbed his crossbow, Carrie pulled up a steel stake that was standing, dug into the ground. She drove it into the face of the first walker and withdrew it, stepping to the side and repeating her actions on the next. Daryl slung his crossbow over his shoulder and instead drew his knife from the sheath at his hip. He stepped forward, with a skip, and plunged his knife into the eye of the large male walker, who was snapping at him with a slavering mouth. Between them they had felled the five remaining walkers in a matter of seconds.

Daryl withdrew his knife from the last corpse and turned to look at Carrie. She threw the steel rod to the ground at her right and stomped forward to Daryl. Her movements caught Daryl off guard as she shoved him hard in the chest, sending him backwards to the dirt of the driveway. His knife dropped to the side in the overgrown grass.

"What the fuck?!" Daryl shouted at Carrie from the ground, holding his still tender wound site.

"What the fuck yourself?" She hissed back at him. "Could you be any louder?" She pointed to Merle's bike, her eyes darting momentarily from Daryl's snarling face to his hand at his side.

"Yer the one who cracked the rifle, ya crazy woman." He brushed off his hands, not yet getting up from the dirt.

She turned and kicked at the stake on the ground, booting it out of her way, as she trudged heavily back to the house. For a thin woman she sure left an impression that kept a man down if she wanted him there.

Daryl, who took her 'not shooting him in the face' as a good sign, got slowly to his feet. He ran his fingers through his hair, brushing it out of his eyes, as he looked at the rotted corpses around the fence line. He hoisted up his crossbow higher on his shoulder and picked up his knife from the ground, biting at the inside of his mouth. He walked to the house and ascended the stairs cautiously. Carrie had left the door open behind her and Daryl considered that an unspoken invitation. He still proceeded with discretion.

Carrie was sitting at the kitchen table with her child on her knee. She had returned to her lunch with her baby boy. The kid was eating some apple pieces from a bowl on the table. Daryl walked into the kitchen quietly. He had left his crossbow and knife on a small table near the door. His head was low, trying to seem passive, and he watched the woman and child through his long fringe. He stood quietly at the bench and leaned back against it, biting at the skin on the side of his thumb.

Carrie breathed quietly, her body was tense, and she kept her eyes on her son. Her thin hands were draped gently over the child's tiny shoulders. The kid was young, barely out from infancy. The little boy smiled at his mom's whispered words in his ear. She kissed him on the back of his head as he ducked away from the tickling breath on the back of his neck. Carrie looked up to Daryl, who had been watching her with a soft smirk on his lips.

The child turned to his mom and offered her the sucked on, browning piece of apple in his hand. "No thank you." She smiled, speaking in a whispered voice. "Are we all done?"

The young child didn't answer her, he just dropped the apple into the bowl and wiped his sticky hands on the front of his shirt. She stood up with the boy in her arms, and carried him to the sink where there was a small bucket of water. She dipped his hands into the water and gave them a quick rub with her finger tips. She picked up the threadbare hand towel beside the sink as he played and splashed a little. She lifted him on to her hip and dried his small fingers. Dropping the towel, she turned with the child and left the room. She caught Daryl's gaze as her eyes flicked to his face, just before she passed under the threshold.

Daryl shifted against the bench top and waited for the woman to return to the room. She was only away for a few minutes and returned silently to her seat at the table moments later. She pushed her face into her palms, elbows on the table. Daryl wasn't going to speak first. As far as he was concerned she was in the wrong and would have to be the one who opened their conversation. He didn't know what to say anyway.

She looked up from her hands, exhausted. Carrie was tired. Her own thoughts were a giddy swirl in her off-balance head. Too tired to think of a lie, she answered him honestly.

"You were right." Carrie spoke softly.

"'Bout what?" He replied, not giving her an inch.

She hesitated, but continued. "I did want you to come back here."

"I know. Saw ya wit' the blindfold, 'fore ya took me back to town." He dropped his thumb from his mouth and looked at it, before placing his hands either side of him against the bench. "If ya didn' want me to come back, you coulda covered m' eyes. Doubt I woulda been able to find ya again, tucked away in here." He looked around the kitchen briefly before returning his blue eyes to her green ones. "So, why?"

"There is no why." She said resignedly. "Or there are many reasons why. I don't know." She sighed. "You were the first adult I have talked to since last winter." She looked away from his piercing gaze, embarrassed by her own timid words.

"'at was fuckin' dumb, y' know." He chastised, drawing her eyes back to his. "What if I wasn't one'a the good guys?" He saw the inward thought flash behind her eyes, as her mouth pulled in tighter and her head dipped a little.

It hadn't occurred to Carrie that he might have been dangerous. The bad guys don't get shot and left in the street to turn, do they? The bad guys didn't have kind eyes that made you feel like they were encouraging you to be strong, even when you were looking at them from the other side of a rifle. She couldn't focus her mind these days, her disjointed thoughts were getting harder and harder to bring together. Lack of sleep will do that.

"What?" Daryl asked her. She had spoken some of her thoughts aloud without realising it.

"I don't sleep." The words repeated from her mouth involuntarily. It wasn't an excuse. Or it was. She didn't know why she had said it to him. Her body was acting on impulse. Her mouth spoke before she even thought the words.

Daryl cocked his head slightly and his mouth turned up at the corner. His brow was furrowed as his eyes examined her form. He noticed that her shoulders shook slightly, almost unnoticeably. Her body was heavier than it should be, as she appeared to slump forward a bit. Daryl noticed her long hands as she brought her fingers to her mouth. Her pale lips parted and she bit at her unbearably short finger nails. Her green eyes flickered a dull light, but it was the last of her energy.

"Why don'tcha sleep?" Daryl asked, concerned as her life seemed to fade before his eyes.

"I don't sleep. I only watch." She looked out the half boarded up kitchen window to the fence line.

"Whadda ya mean?" He stepped forward from the bench.

"I don't know." Her reply confused Daryl further, frustrating him.

"What the fuck is goin' on?" Daryl 's voice sounded a little desperate and angry as he tried to work out what was happening to the woman in front of him. He put his hand under her jaw, tilting her head back, rougher than he meant, so he could pick up her eye contact again. A flicker of confusion darkened her expression for a moment, before her eyes seemed to focus back on Daryl's ice blue stare. "Well, when _did _ya sleep last?"

Carrie's eyes broke away from his as she looked down to the left, searching her memory, trying to recall. She looked back to him with the tiniest shake of her head and shrug of her shoulders.

"Ok, then that is whut you are doin' right now." He said, releasing her face. "I'll watch. You go ta bed an' sleep." He ordered

"I can't, Jack is in there." Daryl noted the boys name, as he helped her to her feet.

"Even better. Go curl up to ya boy an' get some sleep." Daryl's voice turned soft as he stood right beside her, guiding her around the chair and out of the kitchen.

Daryl helped keep her steady on her feet and walked her down the short hall way to the bedroom. The one he had been kept in last time he was in this house.

She looked at him, quietly confused. Daryl didn't say anything, he just tucked his mouth into a tight line and frowned at her.

He steered her through the door way and to the side of the bed. She sat down on the edge with a gentle prod from Daryl. He bent down and lifted Carrie's feet, removing her boots and pushing her further on to the bed. Easing her down by her shoulders, he directed her to lay on her side, facing her small child. She moved where he pushed her, no fight left in her. He gently tugged at her hair tie, sliding it from her loose brown lengths.

Daryl stepped back, watching her shoulders drop and her breathing ease. He had never seen the effects of sleep deprivation before, and it scared him a little that she could be so messed up.

He returned to the kitchen and stood before the partially boarded up rear window. The house didn't really need to be watched. The fence was tall and clearly strong, there was no threat from the walking dead. But Daryl had promised her he would watch, so he did.


	4. Chapter 4

_***Quick thank yous and then on with the show.**_

_**To Leyshla Gisel- Great! Thank you. I'm glad you are enjoying the story. I am terrible at reading infliction and I have a tendency to think the worst. I also tend to be my own harshest critic. I hope you know that reviews are life-blood to ff writers, and you are doing a great service by leaving a comment. So everything is appreciated, thank you.**_

_**To Nanami Yatsumaki- I'm pleased I have your interest. Thanks for commenting. Enjoy.**_

_**I'm not going to beg or anything, but every review I get is the absolute best part of my day. And everyone needs love. X.**_

Carrie woke to a pitch black room. It was so dark she couldn't tell if her eyes were open or closed. She felt the bed around her, searching for his small body. Her hands found nothing but the cool blankets and pillow. Panic, in the form of a sickening heat, rose in the back of her throat. Rolling quickly to her other side, she misjudged the edge of the bed and fell to the floor with a dull thud. She scrambled to her hands and knees, as her eyes adjusted to the dark. Disorientated, she was able to discern a soft light from the door way. Light from another room. Carrie staggered to her feet and scurried for the door's open frame.

Daryl was sitting on the couch, with a single candle in front of him on the coffee table, and her son tucked up against him asleep. He had been looking at the door way waiting for her appearance after hearing her crash to the floorboards. When she appeared suddenly, looking like a wild cat, Daryl tensed knowing that he had frightened her by taking her son from the bed.

Carrie closed her eyes as relief swept through her, followed quickly by anger. And a little bit of relief again as she realised her thoughts were moving partway in a cohesive manner again. Her fury ebbed away as she processed the situation. Her son was ok. She had slept for the first time in months, not counting the times she had blacked out and woken up on the floor or slumped over in her chair.

Daryl watched from his seat on the couch as the woman wiped tears from her cheeks and staggered towards the lounge. He felt bad that he had unintentionally scared her.

The small boy had woken shortly after Daryl had put Carrie to bed. She had been so out that she didn't even stir when the kid had been sitting up on the bed beside her, babbling away in his baby language. Daryl got the kid from the bed, without disturbing Carrie, and had taken him to the kitchen. He changed and fed the kid, like he had done a hundred times with Lil' Asskicker and entertained the boy, leaving his mom to sleep.

"Go back to sleep Momma. I got this." Daryl mumbled, gesturing to the kid under his arm.

Her heart was thudding hard in her chest, as she moved into the living room, sitting down in an armchair opposite the couch. She lay sideways on the wide chair, her head down on the arm rest. She pulled her feet up and tucked them under her. Her large, wet, green eyes only on the little boy who always slept so peacefully, unaware of the horror-filled world he had been born into.

It was only another few minutes before she was asleep again too. Carrie had her hands tucked up to her jaw and her face drawn down slightly towards her chest. Daryl watched over both mother and child as they slept, deep in thought as he bit at the inside of his mouth.

…...

They sat around the small round dining table in the kitchen. The little boy sat on Carrie's knee, smiling at Daryl as he made a damn mess of his oats. Only about half of each spoonful he scooped up with the sideways spoon actually made it to his mouth. Carrie let him eat his own way, knowing that he was learning, as Daryl watched with a slight grimace.

"How old 's the kid anyway?" He asked, pushing his own empty bowl of oats to the side.

"I don't know." Carrie replied, embarrassed. "How long has it been since the world turned to shit?"

"mm… probly 'bout a year and three months." Daryl said aloud, thinking over the seasons in his head.

"Then he is one year, two months and 28 days." She said plainly, planting a small kiss on the boy's soft brown hair. Daryl lifted an eyebrow, not speaking, encouraging her to continue. With a slight sigh, she went on. "When I first heard about it all, I was in the hospital maternity rooms because my waters had broke. I don't know if you heard, but the military went crazy and started shooting everybody in the hospitals. 'Containment' I had heard one soldier say to another."

She mindlessly stroked Jack's arms, recalling a difficult memory. "I managed to get out of there with the help of a male nurse. He took me out some basement exit that the military guys didn't know about. When we got far enough away, he said he had to go find his family, and he left me. People were evacuating to the city refugee centre but I didn't go. I couldn't really travel as I started getting bad cramps. I tried to stop, but it's not like you have any control or anything. I eventually found myself in some family's home. The place was empty when I broke in through the glass sliding door at the back of the house." Her voice cut off suddenly, causing Daryl and the little boy to both turn their eyes to her, waiting for her to proceed. She smiled down at the child in her lap and continued. "I did it alone. Gave birth in an upstairs bedroom." She looked up to Daryl and caught him with her green depths. "I'm damn lucky it was all straight forward. If something had gone wrong, I don't know what would have happened."

She stood up with the boy, in her arms and carried him to the sink. Carrie rinsed the loose fallen oats from his clothes and face as Daryl sat back in his chair.

"So how did ya know how to do everythin'?" He asked the question that first popped into his head.

"I don't know really." She shrugged, turning around and setting the boy down on his feet. He toddled off to the lounge as she continued. "I have always just sort of absorbed information and a lot of it just came to me, or maybe it was instinct or something, I don't really know."

"Well what if a walker found ya?" He said a little angrier than he meant.

"Then I would have been fucked!" She shot back, tempered. "It was not like I had a lot of options available to me."

"Pff…" Daryl looked away to the back window, caught off-guard by her quick-tempered reply. "How'd ya end up here?" He watched a random walker brush along the chain link out the back.

"Well it wasn't our first stop." She looked away to the floor, trying to calm her anger. "We got out of town." She recalled in her head how she had slid the torn apart corpses from an SUV and removed the bloodied child seat, replacing it with a clean one she had found in a garage. "We drove until we came upon a group of people camping in the state forest. They took us in. It was fine for a little while, except the self-appointed leader of the group was some ex-marine, with a bad case of PTSD. The whole thing didn't last long, maybe a few weeks." Her eyes drifted back up to meet Daryl's. "Some bad stuff happened." Carrie's words hung in the air for a moment before she started slowly nodding her head and tightened her lips. She sighed a small huff and continued. "So I left one night. Snuck away, pushing my car down the hill before I jumped in and drove off. Wasn't long before I found some more people. They had it together much better." She smirked. "Led by a trauma surgeon. The man was smart, and a doctor. It was good." She nodded to herself. "My son finally had his first check up. And everything was going well." Carrie's eyes turned a little harsher as she continued. "We were using a basketball stadium that had been set up for emergency shelter but had been abandoned. We had cots, food, water, everything. There were about twenty five of us in the beginning, but our numbers began to grow. It wasn't long, maybe a month, before there were fifty or so. Families and good people.'

"We had limited guns but our main strength was we kept the doors barricaded and boarded up with the timber from the bleachers." Carrie sighed heavily. "Our weakness was trust. We trusted people too much and that was our undoing." She stood and walked to the bench beside Daryl, looking at her feet. "A kid, about 6 years old, died. He had some sort of meningitis or virus or something. The family hid it thinking they would be kicked out if people thought he was a biter. Problem is, once he died, he _was _a biter. The panic started in the middle of the night. People were screaming and running everywhere, searching in the darkness for their family and the way out. More people got bit, others got hurt or killed or trampled in the confusion, and the whole place fell apart in a matter of minutes." She paused with bated breath before continuing. "I don't really know how, but I got out with Jack. We got in the closest car I could find. I just put him on the floor, still wrapped up in his blankets and drove." Carrie pushed away from the bench and went to the sink, washing Jack's stray oats around the sink down the drain.

Daryl, who had been silently listening to her, moved from his place at the bench and stood beside her, looking out the back window with his arms tightly folded over his chest. Carrie continued. "So no more groups. I took off and drove for a long time. For weeks, we lived in our car, searching for anywhere and anything to eat. One day I foolishly let the tank run dry. No fuel. We were stranded." Carrie thought back to that day when she had cried for hours on end, until nothing more could come from her, before finally picking herself up and getting it together. She had made a sling for Jack from a blanket and taken off into the woods around her, avoiding the roads as that was where the biters seemed to be in larger packs. "I had a knife and a small handgun I found in the glove compartment of the car. Not that I really knew what to do with either. And I took off with Jack, walking through the woods hoping to find a farm or something. I eventually found this place." With that she rubbed at her forehead and turned away from the sink. She began to walk out of the kitchen and, with a tilt of her head to the doorway, Daryl followed. "It belonged to a drug dealer. After I got under the fence, I found him wandering around, dead of course. He still had a needle hanging from his arm when I shot him. Idiot must have OD'd or something. It felt like I won the lottery. Guns, drugs, not just illegal drugs but antibiotics and painkillers. We had clean tank rain water, and food stores. Rice, pasta, …canned food. This house was our salvation. I cleaned it out and made it our home. More or less, been here ever since."

They had walked to the front room, opposite the bedroom, a door that was locked. Carrie took the keys from her pocket and unlocked the door as Daryl watched with piqued curiosity at the room he had not yet been in. Carrie opened the door and stepped into the room. Daryl looked around with an incredulous gaze. The room was larger than the main living area and kitchen combined. It was kitted out with a full hydroponics set up, large open skylights and a drip-fed water system from a dedicated water tank outside the window. The room was bountiful with vegetables of different varieties.

"I converted it to an indoor veggie garden and we have been pretty much self-sufficient ever since." Carrie said with a half-smile.

"Not bad." Daryl replied, looking the room up and down. His eyes soon caught on the wooden crates in the corner, opposite the door. "What's in there?" He nodded to the three large boxes.

Carrie walked over to the crates and lifted the lid to show Daryl the contents. "Well this one has two full garbage bags of marijuana." She said with a little laugh. "I didn't know what to do with it. So I just boxed it up." Daryl pulled a strange face, a mix of disbelief and absurdity. Carrie continued. "These two," She tapped the lid of the top crate and lifted it open to reveal it's contents, "Gun and lots of ammo."

Daryl stepped forward and looked in to the box with anticipation. Rifle, automatics, shot guns, hand guns and many small boxes of ammunition. It was like a Merle Dixon Christmas. Drugs and guns.

The quick thought of his brother brought a small pain to the back of Daryl's throat, but he ignored it. "Won the lottery alright." He said with a small chuff to the straight-forward woman beside him.

"I know." She smiled softly and walked out of the room. Daryl followed her, locking the door and pulling it shut behind him. They walked into the lounge and Carrie sat on the floor, next to her son. "And I've been here raising Jack pretty much ever since. We don't really leave unless we have to. I was only in the town the other day, because I needed a few personal items. It was only the second time I had ever actually been there. And I don't think I'm likely to return again any time soon." She said with a mumble.

Daryl sat quietly on the arm of the chair opposite the couch. He bit mindlessly at the inside of his mouth, considering his next words. "I think ya might have a false sense of security about this place." He said with a slight sigh.

"What do you mean?" She asked, looking up at him from the floor.

"I mean. Sure, yer safe from walkers but there's more'n that out there now. Like those men who shot me." Daryl said standing up and looking out the window, not wanting to see the bewildered, and almost betrayed, look on her face. "They'll tear this place down in a heartbeat ta get at those crates you got in that room there." He gestured with his thumb to the room they just left. "Not to mention you yourself even said you don't know how to use any of it."

Carrie started to anger on the floor, looking up disbelievingly at Daryl. She would never blow up in front of her son, but she was damn near close to boiling point. She stood up quickly and walked over to Daryl, shoving him so that he faced her. His face contorted into an angry sneer, but he stoped the words in his mouth that he was about to shout because he caught sight of the small boy on the ground.

Daryl's glance over her shoulder, made Carrie reconsider her rage and she breathed heavily, trying to pull herself back from the edge. "Pff…" Daryl shook his head at her closed green eyes. 'Damn, she had a quick temper' He thought to himself. He turned back to the window as she stood silently beside him.

"Well I'm not leaving." She finally spoke in a shaky voice.

"Well you ain't stayin'." He retorted.

She furrowed her brow and scrutinised his words. "No. _You're _not staying." She turned away from him and walked to the kitchen as he looked away from the window to her hunched shoulders.

Daryl followed her resentfully to the kitchen. "You want me to go? Fine. I never said I was stayin'. I didn't _ask_ for this. You did. Y'all want me gone? I'm gone. Adios." He said with a wave over his shoulder as he turned and stomped down the front hall, glancing briefly at the kid with the soft, brown hair on the floor.

Carrie had sat down at the table, but she quickly stood back up again, knocking her chair over backwards as she got to her feet. Daryl looked back over his shoulder at the clatter. He took in only a momentary fleeting look of Carrie's regretful face before he pulled open the front door and marched outside.

Daryl slammed the door behind him and stalked over to his bike. Hating every foot step he took away from the house. He climbed on his bike and hung his crossbow on the forks at the front. Daryl was about to start the loud motorcycle when he looked up and realised he couldn't just storm off. The gate was locked. And he didn't really want to leave anyway. Not like that.

Daryl put his hands over his eyes and rubbed hard at the sockets. When he took them away again, Carrie had appeared from the house, standing in the doorway. She looked at him with dark, wet eyes. Her green iris' seemed to shine behind her slightly pink-flushed pale skin. Her hair was a loose mess, pulled back from her face. Her slim body, shuddering almost unnoticeably. Carrie's arms were folded across her abdomen, holding herself. She had a glint of alloy in her hands, the keys.

Daryl got off the bike slowly. Not knowing exactly what was about to come out of his own mouth. He didn't know if he was going to rage at her, soothe her or something else. So he walked slowly, giving himself time to account for all his emotions. She avoided his eye and just held open her hand, revealing the keys.

Carrie didn't want him to leave. Not really. But she opened her hand anyway.

He saw the gesture and sneered slightly at the handful of metal. Daryl walked up the step of the porch and stopped directly in front of Carrie. He pushed the hand of keys aside as he spoke. "You really want me to go or are ya jus' being stubborn?"

"I don't want you to go." She whispered back. When he didn't reply, Carrie added. "Please."

Daryl breathed a heavy sigh as the tightness in his stomach loosened at her words. "I'll be back."

Carrie looked up into his face, her cheeks wet, and nodded her head, softly and wordlessly. Her mouth was a tight little line as she stopped herself from begging. Begging him not to go.

Daryl picked up her wrist and went to take the keys from her palm. Carrie tightened her hands on the metal and turned slightly, brushing Daryl's shoulder as she walked past him to the fence's chain link gate. He watched her walk away as he turned towards his bike.

Shaking his head a little at the situation he was now in as he climbed on, he started the motorcycle with a short rev and pushed forward towards the yard exit.

As he approached, Carrie said something he didn't quite catch.

"Whadya say?" He asked loudly.

"I said, how many people are in your group?" She shouted back.

"Dunno, maybe 'bout forty." She frowned at his words and stepped back. She unlocked the heavy chain and held the gate open for him. Daryl gave her a slight nod, which she replied to with a tight lipped smile, as he put his feet to the foot pegs and took off with a grumble from the lumpy engine.


	5. Chapter 5

Carol walked briskly to the yard. She had heard Daryl's motorcycle coming up the road and went out to meet him. And admonish him for leaving them.

Daryl pulled up in the car yard and kicked out the stand. Before he had even swung his leg over, Carol was standing beside him, scowling with her soft eyes.

"What?" He asked her. "What happened?" Expecting that he missed something from the way she was reprimanding him with her expression.

"Nothing. Thankfully." Her lips set into a tight crease.

"Well then what's yer problem?" He asked, not looking at the woman but taking a knee beside his bike so he could inspect the small oil leak he had noticed on his return ride.

"This isn't you Daryl." She frowned. "You don't leave us for some random woman out there." Carol swung her arm, gesturing to the road beyond the prison gates.

"You think you know me, Carol?" He stood up with a sneer, looking her in the eyes. "Why don't you tell me why I'm going out there?"

"I don't know. You think you owe her something?" Carol's face faltered at her words. "You don't owe her anything, Daryl."

"Yeah?" Daryl's mouth tightened as he continued. "Well whadda I owe you?"

Carol sighed as her eyes tickled at his harsh words. She didn't know how to reply. Pulling her lips into her mouth she turned with a soft nod and walked away, her arms wrapped around her middle protectively. Daryl bit at the inside of his mouth, harder than he had meant to. His bite drew a little bit of blood from his lip and the coppery tangy taste sat on his tongue. He hadn't meant to upset Carol. The woman was his best friend and, at hard times, had been even more. Daryl didn't know how he felt and all her questions were making him angry. Not at her, or Carrie. At himself.

Daryl turned back to his bike, crouching down at the slightly split oil line. He tried to forget about these women making his life hard and focused on the job at hand.

…...

"Are you going back out there?" Rick asked.

Daryl nodded solemnly. He and Rick were on watch, circling the yard in the middle of the night. As they checked over the fence line.

"Have you told Carol?" Rick enquired. "Cuz you know she is concerned…"

"Yeah. I got it Rick." Daryl cut him off sharply.

"Okay." Rick said slowly, nodding his head. "So what was her name again?" He pried further.

Daryl gave him a look out the side of his eye and let out a short breath. "Carrie."

"Mm hmm." Rick said, inviting Daryl to continue.

"She has a kid. Boy named Jack. Not much older 'an Lil' Asskicker." Rick snorted softly at Daryl's pet name for his daughter. Daryl let out a weighty sigh. "She doesn't realise how much danger she's in, out there alone."

"So you're, what, protecting her?" Rick questioned.

"No, I'm gonna try and convince her to come here. They can't stay out there Rick." Daryl replied in a harsh whisper.

"I understand Daryl, I really do." Rick nodded slowly at his words.

"But?" Daryl asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"But nothing, man. You do what you gotta do." Rick said, shouldering his rifle.

Daryl and Rick continued on silently, stalking out the perimeter, then returning to their guard tower posts.

Daryl stood without a sound, at the corner of his watch tower. His arms folded across his chest, he bit mindlessly at the edge of his thumbnail. He looked at the nail as he drew it away from his face. It was bitten back quite far, but not painfully so. Daryl recalled seeing Carrie's chewed fingernails, bitten back so far some even looked as though they had bled.

He couldn't leave her and the kid out there. She didn't see it herself, but Carrie was falling apart. Daryl had asked Hershel about what happens when somebody doesn't sleep.

"Firstly it is very difficult to fight sleep." The vet-come-doctor lectured. "The body simply won't have it. A person who is suffering from sleep deprivation will often fall into a pattern of micro sleeps, similar to blacking out." Hershel paused before continuing. "Following from that, there are many physiological effects; confusion, depression, paranoia, memory lapses. Also hand tremors, aching muscles and an impaired immune system. The human body needs sleep to heal and replace damaged cells."

Daryl frowned at the doctors words, knowing he had pretty much witnessed all that the old man had mentioned. "Anythin' else?" He asked.

"Yes." Hershel continued, nodding his head in earnest. "Long term, the effects become very damaging to the human brain. Loss of sleep can result in seizures, psychosis and even bipolar disorder. It can make a person incapable of putting an emotional event in the proper perspective and even harder still, making a controlled suitable response."

"Thanks Doc." Daryl had mumbled as he left the cell block.

Now standing on watch, Daryl's mind drifted from Carrie to Carol.

'What the hell was her problem, anyway?' Daryl asked himself, rubbing his face roughly. He was doing the right thing, but she was acting like he wasn't. Daryl had fought these thoughts for as long as he could. What exactly did he have with Carol?

It had started back at the farm, he knew that much. The grievous search for Sofia, and Carol's acknowledgement that Daryl had done more for her little girl than her own father ever had. The Cherokee roses. She had started something inside him. Had made him feel something more than worthless for the first time in his life. It had developed a kind of relationship between them. She relied on him and trusted him. Daryl had felt needed and showed her he cared the only way he could. He protected her. And in return she gave him someone he could turn to. Carol was the one person he could always talk to if he needed to, or just stand silently next to if he needed to. Her warm presence beside him on watch had been enough to give him the strength to always keep going. He drew his strength from her strength.

At his lowest, his darkest time, following the death of Merle, his brother, on the eve of The Governor's second assault on the prison, Carol had been something more.

Daryl considered how she had not ever pressed him for anything more after that night. It had just been what it was. But maybe, to her it had been more.

Carol had buried herself deep in his heart. He loved her but couldn't be in love with her. There was just too much between them. Too much pain and too much loss. He hadn't been able to look in her eyes and not feel some sort of remorse since the farm. Anguish and sorrow were too awful for any kind of relationship to build on.

Now Carol was going crazy on him, acting all jealous. He was going to have to talk with her about something that was suppose to be unspoken.

…...

"Don't go." Carol had approached him while he ate his breakfast, tears in her eyes and her hands clasped at her chest, begging. "Don't go out there again Daryl. Please."

Daryl looked at the listening crowd around them. He placed his half-empty bowl down on the table and grabbed Carol by the arm. He dragged her out of the gen-pop room and down the hall to the laundry, away from the gossips. They didn't need to know his business. He opened the door and shoved her into the room.

"Get the fuck out!" He shouted at Beth and the tall curly-haired blonde, whose name he didn't know. The two women scowled at him and his bad temper as they left the room. "What the fuck Carol?"

"Daryl, don't go. Don't leave us." She pleaded.

"I ain't leavin' anyone. That's why I'm doin' this Carol." He hurled at her, shouting at her, brandishing his arms aggressively. His hands curled tightly into fists at his side as he tried to direct his rage away from the teary woman before him. "Shit! She has a kid Carol. I ain't leavin' them out there while that fucking maniac is still alive!" Daryl snarled and turned abruptly, slamming his fist into the side of a steel dryer. The metal clanged loudly and crumpled around his punch. Carol flinched slightly at his actions, realising she was being unreasonable.

"What is this Daryl?" She sniffed. "What are we."

"You can't ask me that." He turned and spat to the side, idly flexing his damaged hand. Carol stared into Daryl's eyes. He was putting up a wall between them.

She waited patiently as he started to falter. His stern barricade never took long to fall with her.

"Look Carol." He started quietly. "I don't know the words for what we are. More'n friends, I know that, but I can't say if we will ever be anything else. Ya get me? This stupid fuckin' jealousy is ridiculous." He put his hand out to touch her, but she stepped back. Her arms in their familiar position, wrapped around herself. She turned and slowly left the room. He wanted to stop her, to grab her and drag her back to finish this painful conversation that he didn't know how to have. But he didn't.

…...

The entire undertaking with Carol played over in his head during the drive to Carrie's house. Daryl had taken the blue truck, hoping that he might be able to find the right words to convince her to pack up and come to the prison. He had even strapped in the baby seat that was for Judith.

Carrie stood at the porch with her rifle raised. Daryl lifted his hand and gave her a gesture that could have been mistaken for a wave. She lowered her weapon and turned back inside the house, returning with the rifle slung over her shoulder and the gate keys in her hand. She jogged, holding onto her left thigh as she moved to the fence line. She wore a navy blue long-sleave button up shirt, open, over a grey singlet with a pair of black/grey jeans. She swung the gate open and closed again after Daryl's truck entered.

"Hey." She appeared at his door as he stepped out. Carrie brushed her loose hair back from her face as it blew about in the rough wind.

"Hey. Get inside the house." He replied, looking up to the dark sky.

…...

"I'm not going anywhere Daryl." She hissed harshly. Jack had just fallen asleep on the couch beside her. Daryl chose this moment to talk to her about leaving, knowing that she wouldn't explode with her little boy beside her.

"Ya jus' don't get it Carrie." He shook his head but didn't drop the eye contact. He knew if he looked away he wouldn't be able to get her back again. He stood his ground, by the lounge window, and waited her out. "You are putting yerself and ya boy in danger."

"We have ridden out _waves _of biters creeping up on this place." She said, quiet but fierce. "We have driven away men who dared to think they could take this place from us."

"We? Us?" He asked incredulously, not letting her reply he continued on. "There is only you out here, Carrie. You are alone with a defenceless kid out in the woods. Jus' cuz you have food and guns, don't mean shit if those other men show up with grenade launchers."

"Daryl." Her voice cracked, she cleared it softly before pausing to collect her words. "I can't be in a group. _Forty people _you said the other day. That is forty potential 'walkers', as you call them."

"They are good people. Families." He stressed.

"Families are the worst Daryl. They have more reason to lie. They have more to loose." Carrie replied with a hiss.

The tense words hung in the air. Daryl let the argument drop, resigning to try again later. Carrie looked at him from the couch with dark, wet eyes. Anger was seething beneath her flushed surface, but she held it in check, barely. He broke the eye contact and returned to looking out the window.

…...

Carrie had made another delicious meal of vegetables stewed with rabbit. Jack sitting on Carrie's knee, they both shared the plate of food. Daryl sat opposite the pair, cleaning up his own plate with a bread roll.

He had entered the kitchen earlier, drawn in by the smell of hot baking bread. The sweet aroma had filled the whole small house, making his stomach ache. He had tried to stay away, giving Carrie space and time to consider his demand, but baking bread is a powerful weapon.

Carrie had baked the small dinner rolls to accompany the meal she had been slow cooking. Rabbit was a tough game and hard for her little boy to get through unless it was cooked soft.

As Daryl cleaned up the last of the gravy, a though occurred to him.

"Where did ya get the rabbit?" He asked around the last bit of bread in his mouth, looking up at the woman opposite him.

Carrie smilled softly to herself, trying not to laugh at his manners. "I set snares up behind the house. They go up high to keep the rabbit out of reach of the walkers. About 50 yards that way." She pointed out the rear kitchen window.

"How did you learn ta do that?" He replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Same as everything I know." She sighed. "Trial and error."

"'s at how you learned to stitch up gun shots?" He asked, pushing his empty plate aside.

"Yeah." She replied quietly. Daryl furrowed his brow at the slightly queasy, ashen look that flitted over Carrie's face. He didn't push the subject, despite his piqued curiosity.

"Is there anything you can't do?" He said, teasing her a little, trying to get their conversation back. Daryl couldn't help but feel relieved that maybe he was seeing the normal, stable side of Carrie.

"Actually, there is something." She grinned a slightly twisted smirk as she stood, placing her son in her seat as she stood. She passed Jack the last half of her dinner roll and turned, leaving the room to the front of the house. She returned moments later with two bundled up cloths. She placed the two slightly heavy sacks in front of Daryl, with a dull clunk of metal on the wooden table, and sat beside him. "I pulled it apart, hoping to clean it." Daryl opened the first small sack as she spoke, revealing a disassembled glock handgun. "But then I couldn't work out how to put it back together." She finished sheepishly.

Daryl shook his head with a soft chuckle as he looked at her blushed cheeks. He turned to the second sack, opening it to see a second disassembled glock.

Carrie hid her hot face in her hands as she spoke. "I pulled that one apart to work out how to put the other back together."

"How'd that work out for ya?" He teased quietly.

"Shut up." She swiped at his shoulder playfully. "Can you fix them?"

"Yeah. I got it." He smirked as he pulled the first bundle closer in front of him.

…...

Carrie bathed Jack in the bathroom attached to the kitchen and put him to bed shortly after dinner. Daryl had reassembled the hand guns and cleaned a few of Carrie's other weapons for good measure, as well as his crossbow. He sat back in the kitchen chair, his forearms on the table in front of him, waiting for her to return.

She walked silently into the kitchen, the room getting dark with the last light of sunset fading into black, meeting his eyes with a brief smile. Her eyes trailed to the freshly cleaned and maintained small pile of weapons on the table. She smiled weakly to herself, the action not escaping Daryl's attention.

"What are you smirkin' at?" He asked, gruff but with a slight twist at the corner of his mouth.

"Just thinking how this kind of thing would have freaked me out a year and a half ago, but now it is kind of reassuring to see a spread of guns, rifles and crossbows on my dining table." She sighed softly, her smile turning into a grimace as she lit a candle on the bench..

Daryl sniggered quietly to her reply as she sat down at the table, looking at him over the weapons.

"So what _did _ya do 'fore the world fell ta shit?" He asked leaning back and folding his arms across his chest and crossing his feet over at the ankles.

"Nothing." She muttered. "I was just some middle-management banking no one, who got knocked up in a one night stand and decided to keep it."

Her blunt answer caught Daryl off guard, again. He furrowed his brow and lifted his thumb to his mouth to bite at the side of his nail. He was never prepared for how she spoke. Her unpredictable emotions and random responses made her conversation erratic. Every time he thought he was getting a handle on her, she did something new. This latest, direct Carrie, made Daryl uneasy and resolute that he should try talking to her again about the prison. Only, he didn't know where to begin.

"What did you do, before it all?" She asked, resting her jaw on her hand in front of her.

"This an' that." He replied, brusquely. "Construction, auto shop… whatever."

"So how do you know so much about guns?" She replied, impassively.

"Been around 'em me whole life." He answered, a little uncomfortable about the conversation being about him. Daryl didn't continue on.

"So is that it? Spotty work history and guns?" She asked flatly, as Daryl bristled at her words. "Got any family?" She pressed.

"Why is this all about me all've a sudden?" He stabbed back, getting up from his chair and moving to lean against the bench.

Carrie raised an eyebrow at Daryl's outburst and his need for physical distance. She had been intentionally provoking him. Poking the bear, as it were. As soon as she had put Jack to bed, returning to the kitchen, she knew Daryl was going to revisit their earlier argument about the prison.

Daryl watched as Carrie got up from the table and walked over to him. Her mouth was pulled into a bitter, tight line. She turned and leaned against the bench beside him, close enough to make Daryl's skin prickle slightly. He could smell her sweet skin as she stood beside him, her arms folded and her hair loose and curtained over the side of her face, considering her own words before she spoke again.

"Just making conversation Daryl." She said nonchalantly. She breathed softly and picked up his eyes with her own. "Unless you don't want to talk anymore?" She asked, laced with a suggestion of something else.

Daryl felt unsettled all of a sudden at her words, and a deep, heady throb in his gut. He tightened his grip on the bench top either side of him, determined to keep his hands to himself. Her eyes were black, in the darkening room. Her pupils so dilated they inked out the green. She drew shallow breaths as her chest rose and fell softly beneath her crossed arms. She looked beautiful, in a dark, damaged way. But the way she was acting, so dry and emotionless, something was wrong. 'The whole situation was fucking wrong' Daryl thought to himself angrily.

"You're right." He said coolly. "I don't wanna talk anymore." He walked away from the bench and picked up his cleaned crossbow from the table. Daryl walked to the back door and turned the handle. As he stepped out into the evening he kept his eyes turned to the floor. "I'm goin' on watch. Go to sleep." He ordered, catching a last glimpse of her slightly sour expression.

_***This chapter is dedicated to Shipperwolf. She is a fantastic writer on this site. The Daryl/Carol moment I referenced is one of her fics 'Oblivion Blue'. Her words are so amazing I find it hard to separate them in my head from actual TWD story. If you haven't read her work I highly recommend you do because, damn, she writes good Caryl.**_


	6. Chapter 6

_*** Love, love, love hearing from you guys. After a while I start getting paranoid, 'no one likes my story… I'm a shitty writer… none of this makes sense anymore…'. Your words boost my confidence back up and the story benefits. Thank you Carriesque, tie228, NanamiYatsumaki, and Leyshla Gisel, for quelling the voices in my head. For you…**_

Daryl leaned against the tailgate of the El Camino as the first light of dawn filtered through the dense trees around the property. He picked at the dirt under his nails with his knife as the hissing moans of two approaching walkers met his ears. They stopped at the fence, clawing their scabby fingers at the chain link. Daryl sheathed his knife and walked through the long grass over to the steel stake, standing up in the firm soil. He pulled it from the ground and moved to where the groaning corpses were following him with their fetid eyes. He stabbed the steel into the face of the first walker, withdrawing it with a twist. It fell to the ground heavily as Daryl pierced the skull of the obese, rancid second walker. It too fell with a thud to the earth. Daryl stepped back and drove the steel rod back into the soil. Looking at the bodies before him and to the other three he had dropped during his watch last night, he wondered what Carrie did with the corpses. She must have amassed a lot in the months she and her son had taken up residence here.

Daryl returned to the El Camino, picking up his crossbow from the flat bed. He briefly glanced at the driver's side, his thoughts circling back to Carrie.

As if she could sense him thinking about her, Carrie suddenly appeared from the front door. She had a jacket pulled around her tightly, shielding her from the brisk morning air. She looked to her left and right, searching for Daryl, before she noticed him beside her vehicle. He walked over to her, taking in her messy hair and tired morning eyes. She rubbed at the bridge of her nose and mumbled to Daryl. "Coffee?"

Daryl stepped up the porch and nodded to her bleary face. He followed her as she turned and withdrew back into the quiet house.

There was a kettle on the small wood fire stove in the kitchen. The heat from the fire chased the chill from the air in the small room. Carrie retrieved two mugs from the cupboard above the bench, and a large tin of instant coffee. She put a small spoon of the dark brown powder into each mug and turned to lean against the bench, waiting for the water to boil.

Daryl walked to the empty table and took a seat facing Carrie. He placed his crossbow on the table in front of him, removing the bolt and taking the tension off the string.

Waiting for the water to slowly boil, a heavy, quiet apprehension filled the kitchen. Neither Carrie nor Daryl wanting to bring up what had happened last night, but both were thinking about it.

It didn't break once the water had boiled and the coffee was made. Carrie filled the two mugs and sat down at the table opposite Daryl. She pushed one mug to him across the table which he took with a tight-lipped nod of the head. They sat in the pulsing silence and sipped the hot liquid. Carrie only getting up once to take a saucepan of cooked porridge off of the stove to cool.

After five or so painful minutes, Carrie heard Jack's morning babble. She stood up with a wisp of a grimace on her lips for Daryl, and left the room. Daryl let out a heavy breath and rubbed at his eyes with hard fists.

Carrie returned minutes later with Jack, freshly dressed and face washed. She placed him in a chair next to Daryl and sought out three bowls for breakfast. She ladled out the porridge and blobbed on a large spoonful of stewed apples from a jar. She placed one bowl in front of Daryl and two in front of herself before lifting Jack from his seat and on to her lap, so he could reach the table.

Daryl ate the soft warm breakfast and savoured the sweet tang from the apples. "'t's good." He mumbled, not looking up from his bowl.

Carrie replied with a small voice. "Thanks."

Daryl tried to think of something else to say before the conversation died into stagnant silence again. "So whadda you do with the walkers? Ya know, once ya off 'em." He gestured with his thumb out the kitchen window, changing the subject.

"I can show you today if you like. I was thinking of taking you on a field trip anyway." She replied with a smirk.

The tension thankfully broken, they finished their breakfast in a more comfortable quiet, only studded with little babbling noises from the messy kid on Carrie's knee.

After a few minutes of playful eating, Jack accidentally knocked his bowl from the table, landing on the floor with a crash. Daryl watched as the kids eyes filled silently with wet tears. Carrie kissed him on the head and slid her half empty bowl in front of him.

Daryl's expression curled up slightly as he considered what he had just seen. "How come ya boy never cries?" He asked, curiously.

"I don't really know." She replied, while patting the boy on the shoulders softly. "I guess maybe because I never let him." She shrugged and continued. "I have never really let him cry, especially not when he was just born and we were always vulnerable. I would just watch him all the time and change him or feed him or rock him to sleep before he ever cried." She looked up at Daryl with a hard smile. "One time, when he was about two months old, I was hiding with him in the back of a store and he started to fuss. That was one of the scariest times of my life. Breastfeeding behind a desk while half a dozen corpses were stalking around the store just outside the glass door."

Daryl's throat constricted slightly at the mention of the motherly action, and felt a hard surge of pity for her and her child. He stood up from the table and placed his empty bowl in the sink. He picked up a cloth from the basin and turned to the small puddle of porridge and shattered bowl pieces on the floor beside Carrie's chair. Getting down on a knee, he picked up the pieces of ceramic and wiped up the spilled breakfast. He briefly looked up to Carrie with a tight-lipped, understated expression and received a flicker of a smile in return. The kind that can put a weird, feathery feeling in a tough guys stomach.

…...

As promised, Carrie prepared to take Daryl out from the property. She had emptied one of the weapons crates, it's contents now in two large, black duffle bags. Daryl helped her carry the empty crate out of the house and put it in the back of his truck, not knowing what it was for. Carrie had agreed to take Daryl's vehicle today, as it had the car seat for Jack in it.

After taking out one last walker with the steel stake, they worked together dragging the corpses from outside the fence and piling them into the flatbed, beside the empty crate.

Jack was placed in the infant seat and secured. They proceeded through the gate, Carrie locking it behind them. Daryl drove under Carrie's direction. Instead of taking the dirt track back to the main road, they drove down alongside the fence to the back of the house and continued down a second bush track, barely wider than the vehicle. After about ten minutes of driving, Carrie was getting somewhat irritated at Daryl, scowling at him for driving too hard over the tree roots and dips in the track.

"Slow it down." She snapped. Carrie was a little on edge but it had less to do with Daryl's driving than with what was ahead of them.

They finally came to a wide, impassably deep ditch in the track.

Daryl moved to open the truck door, but was stopped by Carrie. She had grabbed on to his arms and he turned back to face her. She reached into the bag at her feet and produced a colourful ball, which she handed to Jack, and then two black bandanas. She passed one to Daryl with a frown and proceeded to wrap the other around her face, covering her mouth and nose. Daryl copied her and tied his own behind his head. She exited the vehicle quickly and Daryl followed, instantly understanding the need for the mask.

The overwhelming stagnant stench of decaying flesh hung in the air, heavy and sickening. Daryl walked to the edge of the gully, already knowing what he was about to see. The trench was littered with hundreds of bodies in various states of decay. The grey mass of arms and legs, bodies of dead men, women and children, was a nauseating scene. While he had expected something like this, the overwhelming size of it was terrible and unnerving.

Carrie was standing at the back of his truck. Daryl turned, a tight sneer under his bandana, and looked at her with grave reverence, as she lowered the tailgate. His chest tightened as he thought about how casual this had become for her. The daily disposal of decomposing corpses in the rancid hole in the earth.

He jogged over to her to help her with the task. Together they moved the bodies from the flatbed and heaved them into the ditch. There was no need for talk, as opening your mouth only invited the revolting stench into your senses.

After the job was complete, half a dozen more bodies in the trench, Carrie opened her door and reached into the truck producing a large container of water and a bar of soap. Daryl held out his arms as she poured a little of the water over them, then a splash on her own arms in turn. She lathered up the soap and scrubbed down Daryl's arms. She worked the foam down his wrists and into his palms, scrubbing between each of his fingers and into the nail bed with her finger tips. Carrie scrubbed at her own as Daryl rinsed his arms and hands clean with the water. He then poured the remaining water over Carrie's soapy hands. The whole procedure seemed a little overkill to Daryl but it was her system and he respected that, following her lead.

They returned to the truck cab and got in quickly, not inviting the odour into the car with them. Removing the bandana, Daryl started the truck and turned the vehicle around in the small space, as Carrie stroked hard at the muscle in her left thigh, massaging out a tight ache. Daryl looked grimly at the hidden gully in his rear view mirror as the left, returning by the same track.

…...

Instead of returning to the house, Carrie directed Daryl down a side track. The winding, overgrown road opened up after a few minutes, and ended at a farm property fence line. Carrie slipped out the truck passenger door to open the steel gate for Daryl to drive through.

"Just up over here." She spoke as she climbed back into her seat, pointing to the right over a slight hill.

Daryl proceeded on at her word. "Where are we goin'?" He asked grumpily.

"Going out for lunch." She smiled, playfully.

Daryl sneered incredulously at her words and drove on over the hill.

The green paddock opened up to a wide vista of large, fruitful trees. Each tree laden with heavy pinkish apples. The overflowing orchard smelled sweet and perfumed the cab as Carrie wound down the window to breath in the blossom fragranced air. Daryl drove a short way down the road and slowed between two long rows of trees. Carrie directed him to park as close as he could to one side, up beside the trees. He pulled over his side, the lower branches scaping slightly into the battered paint job, and killed the ignition. Carrie opened her door and Daryl followed her out her side, climbing past Jack in his car seat, poking his tongue out the side of his mouth mischievously at the small kid.

Carrie was looking through the trees around them, watchful for any walkers. Daryl stepped to her side, his eyes scanning down the road.

"Anything?" She asked.

"Looks clear." He said, unsure.

"I have only ever ran into one walker here, but that doesn't mean there isn't more." She replied, on edge. "I never bothered to check the fences or anything. I don't like to stay too long." Daryl nodded agreeing with her. "Lets just fill the crate quickly."

"Fill the crate?" He asked looking at the large wooden box in the flatbed of the truck.

"Yeah. For your people." She replied, smiling weakly.

Daryl scoffed at her and then climbed up into the back of the vehicle. Working together, it didn't take as long as Daryl thought it would. They picked what they could reach from each tree before driving forward to the next. Within fifteen minutes, the crate was filled near to the top with the large sun-ripened fruit.

Jumping down from the flatbed of the truck, Daryl turned back to Carrie as she picked the last of the fruit with in reach. She polished up the last two apples and tossed one to Daryl, shotting him a sassy smile. He caught it and she jumped from the back of the tray with the other in her mouth. The crunchy sweetness of the apples satisfied the hunger and thirst built up from their labour.

Carrie opened the passenger side door and gestured for Daryl to enter the cab with a slight bow. She smiled at her baby boy as he reached out for the apple in her hand. She took one more big bite and passed him the fruit. Daryl climbed into the truck, past the kid, and took up his position in the drivers seat. He turned back to look at her as he found the keys and slid them into the ignition.

A thin, female, decaying walker emerged from the tree line, directly behind Carrie. The ragged blonde stumbled forward on a clearly broken ankle and arms outstretched for Carrie.

Seeing the look on Daryl's face, Carrie spun around, pulling her beretta from the back of her jeans. The handgun issued a loud pop and the sundress wearing corpse crumpled to the ground, like a bag of bones.

Quickly getting into the cab, Carrie looked over to Daryl. "I guess that makes it two walkers in the orchard."

"Let get outta here." He grumbled.

Carrie flicked a hard smile at her baby boy as he continue slobbering on the apple in his sticky hands, despite the alarmingly loud gun shot. She wound up her window and rest her head back in the seat. Closing her eyes she trusted Daryl to find his own way back to her property.

…...

Daryl had considered just driving back to the prison. Carrie was asleep in the passenger seat and her son sat happily between them watching the small branches of the surrounding trees flick over the windscreen of the cab as they drove along the track.

Daryl's eyes flicked past the kid to his mother. She had sunk down in the seat and was resting her head against the boy's car seat. Daryl adjusted the rear vision mirror so that he could see her face.

She looked peaceful. Without the worry of survival plaguing her features, she was pretty. Her warm brown hair strayed slightly from the knot at the back of her neck, a few strands curtained her pale face. Carrie's long eyelashes seemed to flutter subtly as she slept, and her dark, sweet lips parted as she breathed softly. He abandoned the idea of taking her directly to the prison. Daryl knew he couldn't betray her trust like that.

As they approached the chain link fence of Carrie's hidden property, Daryl reached over and prodded her softly on the shoulder. "Ay, wake up." He muttered.

Carrie woke with wild eyes, looking around her frantic, but quickly realising where she was. Relaxing somewhat, she stretched her body as best she could in the mid-sized truck cab. Catching Daryl's eyes on her in the rear-view mirror, she looked away shyly and tucked her stray hair behind her ears. Daryl stopped at the gate to the weatherboard house, as Carrie ruffled her sons hair and got out of the truck, still wary of danger. Daryl moved through the unlocked gate as Carrie drew it out of the way. After she closed it, she walked behind the blue vehicle to retrieve her son.

Daryl climbed out with the boy in his arms. He passed the kid to Carrie and picked up his crossbow from the flatbed. Looking mildly irritated, Daryl stepped past Carrie to the house. He held the door open and ushered her inside, looking up at the dark clouds.

"So?" He asked as they walked into the kitchen. "Are ya comin' or not? We're losing light, so it is time to go."

Carrie frowned at Daryl and turned, leaving the room with her yawning son still in her arms. She came back minutes later, having put Jack to bed.

"We have had this talk Daryl." She said, avoiding his eyes she just looked at the floor and moved towards the basin.

"So ya still not comin'?" He asked with a forced tone.

"No." She replied, putting away some plates that were stacked beside the sink.

"Fine." He mumbled, shaking his head. "Well I gotta go." He began walking back towards the front door.

Daryl exited the house, pushing the door open harder than he had meant. It swung open with a bang as he stepped out to the porch. Daryl stalked over to his truck, keys and crossbow in hand. He tossed his crossbow into the passenger seat and unhooked the kids car seat. As he loosened the straps he thought of a few places he might be able to find another for Lil' Asskicker on the way back. He removed the chair from the truck and put it on the porch of the small house, just as Carrie walked out with two large black bags.

Daryl's eyes flicked to the bags in her hands as she walked down the steps and turned towards him.

"Change ya mind?" He asked hopeful, but doubtful, nodding to the luggage.

"No. You should take this with you." She held out the heavy bags and he took them from her before she could strain a muscle. He placed them on the ground and unzipped the heavy canvas bags. They were stocked with the guns from the emptied crate they had used to collect the apples. "You have more people to protect and I have many more." Carrie reasoned. "I don't need them all."

"I'm leavin' you the baby seat, in case you change your damn mind." He snarled, zipping up the heavy canvas.

"I wont." She said, dead certain.

"Shuddup." He said grumpily. "In case you _do_ change ya mind, you get in the car and ya drive west. Should be able to see a few road signs along the way that will direct you to the prison."

Carrie nodded slightly, but didn't give him anything more than that small gesture.

"Are you… coming back?" she asked, hesitantly.

"Maybe." He replied, placing the bags in the flat bed and getting into the drivers seat. He started the engine and looked over to Carrie. "Yeah, I'll be back." He said tapping his knuckles softly on the steering wheel.

Her hard expression faltered slightly. She wasn't a poker face. Carrie wore every single one of her emotions on her face for the world to see. And Daryl didn't miss a single one. He saw everything of her and he felt like he really knew her, despite her ability to still surprise him with a drastic mood swing. She nodded softly and gave him a weak smile, before turning and walking towards the gate. She opened it for him and stepped aside.

No walkers were around at the moment. Daryl looked around to make sure it was clear before he stopped the truck, half in-half out of the gate. Carrie stepped forward to the driver' side door as Daryl reached out. He put his hand to her chin and lifted her head slightly.

"Keep ya head up momma. Look after ya boy." He said, dropping his hand back to rest on the window sill. Carrie nodded, a stiff smile pressed onto her lips. She stepped back and Daryl drove through, watching her in his side mirror.


	7. Chapter 7

Daryl's return to the prison was quiet. He drove in through the main gate and up to the parking spaces where he was met by Rick. Noticing the different child's car seat beside him in the passenger seat, Rick didn't mention it, but instead nodded a 'welcome back' to Daryl. Getting out of the truck, Daryl gestured a soft salute to Rick and nodded his head back. Rick chuffed at his action.

"What have you got there?" Rick asked, gesturing to the crate and pair of bags in the back of the truck.

"Not what I left for." Daryl mumbled. He walked to the back of the truck and dropped the tail gate. He climbed up with a small hop into the back and picked up the two canvas bags. They rattled with a dull clink of metal on metal. Daryl passed them down to Rick, who felt their weight and guessed at the contents. He couldn't help the soft smile of relief cross his features, as he placed the gun bags to the side, despite the grim, tight-mouthed expression on Daryl's face.

Hershel, Glenn and Maggie approached the pair of men from the side yard. Daryl's mind wandered to the possibility of Carol's whereabouts, but didn't mention it.

"Ay, get some boxes or summin'." He pointed his thumb at the large wooden crate over his shoulder. "It's full'a apples and heavy. Need ta empty it out a bit 'fore we can get it down."

Glenn and Maggie turned back. Hershel continued forward, on his crutch.

"We'll take care of this, son." He said with a stiff nod. "Why don't you go get something to eat."

"Not hungry." Daryl replied like a petulant child, jumping down from the back of the truck. He picked up the gun bags as Rick stepped to his side. Grabbing one of the bags, Rick gestured with his free hand for Daryl to lead the way.

As they walked across the fenced yard to cell block C, Rick chanced a little conversation with the sullen man.

"So how has she survived out there that long?" He asked, genuinely curious.

"She found a property." Daryl grumbled. "High fences and far back from the road. It was well stocked when she found it, but has kept it runnin' ever since."

"But you don't think she is safe?" Rick pressed, looking at Daryl with a sidelong glance.

"No." Daryl replied, his voice laced with a waspy sting. "She an' her boy ain't safe. Maybe from walkers, but not much else. And you and I both know what else is out there, Rick." He spat as he waved to the trees beyond the fenced yard.

Rick nodded his down-turned head slowly. "You going back out there again tomorrow?"

"Goin' out there as long as it takes." Daryl shot back before stepping in front of Rick and stomping up the steel steps to their home.

…...

Daryl searched around for Carol. Despite their tense relationship at the moment, she was still the one person he needed around here. He found her in the laundry with Beth, folding a stack of clean, dry clothes.

Daryl pulled his lips into a tight, white line as his eyes flicked over the fist sized dent in the disused steel dryer. Beth looked at him with wide eyes as Carol kept herself from looking up, folding a shirt over in her hands. Daryl met Beth's stare with a brief twitch of his lips. He gave her a hang-dog look that was about as close to an apology as she was gonna get. Beth rewarded his gesture with a small, dry smile and looked to Carol.

Carol sighed and dropped the shirt in her hands back into the basket in front of her. She gave Beth a soft nod with a wry smile, and the young blonde left the laundry, her large eyes glancing at Daryl's turned away face.

The thin woman knew there was no point in waiting for an apology that was never going to come. She folded her arms across her abdomen and turned to face him slowly. She kept her eyes on the wall beside them, determined not to look at him for fear she would start to tear up again.

Daryl leaned back against the folding bench and crossed his arms over his chest. He raised his thumb to his mouth to bite at it in his familiar way, but thought better of it. With all the stress he has been through lately, he was starting to bite too far and his skin had split open a little. He instead dropped his hands to the bench either side of him.

His position looked a lot less defensive and aggressive. Carol mistook it as a backing-down gesture from Daryl. She closed her eyes and sighed softly. When she opened them again, she looked up into Daryl's soft blue eyes.

He bit at the inside of his mouth, waiting on tenterhooks for her to speak. He wanted her to shout at him like he had at her before he left, but he knew she wouldn't. He bit the bullet and spoke first.

"I shouldn't have gone off at ya like I did." He mumbled, looking down at her feet.

"hmm…" was her only reply, the soft grumble a slight reprimand.

"I jus' don't get why you, of all people, are goin' ape-shit over this." He argued, looking back up into her face. "You know when I say I'm comin' back, I am, god damn it."

"You're right Daryl." She replied softly, catching him off guard. "That woman and her child cannot stay out there. And you need to bring them here."

Carol's backflip on the argument to agree with Daryl surprised him. He had had a lot of arguments with women lately and was not expecting it when Carol suddenly agreed with him. Daryl shot her a smouldering look, waiting for the fight to begin. She dropped her protective arms from their folded position and stepped around Daryl, walking towards the laundry exit. Daryl, reacting to her movement without realising it, reached forward and grabbed on to Carol's wrist.

Carol stopped at his grip and looked back at him over her shoulder. Her mouth was a soft little line and her eyes slightly watery. She fought at the tiny lump in the back of her throat that threatened to crack her mostly strong exterior.

"I ain't doin' any'a this ta hurt you." He whispered harshly, his own voice broken lightly.

"I know Daryl." Carol said with a slightly wavering voice. She turned away again towards the door.

"Carol, stop." Daryl growled. The thin woman turned and looked back to Daryl, her face a little stronger as the tears had ebbed away. "Carol, I look at you and all I see is Sofia and me failing you both." Daryl stepped towards her. "Maybe one day I'll be past that, but it ain't today. So whatever it is you want from me, it'll have to wait. Just stop." He said, raising his open hand up slightly, gesturing his words.

"I'll wait." She replied with a whisper as she turned and left the room.

…...

Daryl rode his motorcycle back to Carrie's house again. It had been three days since he had left the weatherboard in the woods. The prison had been hit with a massive inundation of walkers. A large herd, about 80 corpses, hit the west side of the yard in one big wave. It had taken them hours to destroy the swarm of dead. For which they had been thankful for the extra ammo and weapons from Carrie. Not wanting to leave until he was sure the surge had died down, Daryl had waited.

It was late in the day as he approached the house. The rumble of his bike drawing the attention of a lone walker at the back fence of the property. It wasn't a threat, but it wasn't exactly desired either.

Daryl stopped the bike at the gate, looking to the house that was bathed in the yellowy glow of sunset. His searching eyes stopped as he saw Carrie, lying on her back in the dirt near the corner of the house. He dropped the stand on his motorbike and got off with a hurried skip.

"Ay! Carrie!" He shouted. "Hey! Wake up." He banged his open hands hard on the chain link, rattling the wire as loud as he could.

Carrie shifted slowly in the dry dirt. Daryl breathed a sigh of relief as she sat up, and he saw that she wasn't dead. His heart was thumping so hard in his chest he felt a little nauseous. He brushed his hand roughly over his mouth, wiping away the ill sensation. Carrie gradually got up on her unsteady feet, nursing her left hand in her right.

As she approached the gate, Daryl walked back to his bike, eyeing her with an angry sneer. Her loose wisps of hair were plastered to her pale face with sweat. She was covered in dust and woodchips and grass stains. Carrying her left hand gingerly, Daryl noticed her middle finger was slightly crooked. Her breathing was laboured as she stumbled slightly to the chain link gate. Carrie released her wrist and reached back to her rear pocket with her good hand. She passed Daryl the keys though the fence so he could let himself in. Daryl snatched the keys and Carrie took a few steps back, out of the way of the gate. She sat back down in the dirt heavily, as her head began to swim and small white bursts began to take over her vision.

Daryl rolled his bike through the open gate and locked it again behind him before turning back to Carrie. The single, desiccated walker hissed dangerously as she missed her opportunity. Daryl ignored it as he marched over to the woman with the damaged hand.

He kneeled down in front of her, his face still slightly twisted in a scowl. "Whadda ya done?" He asked, in a slightly scolding voice, picking up her hand gently.

She winced at his movement of her digit. "It's dislocated." She hissed through gritted teeth. "It has happened a couple of times… keeps popping out. But I have always been able to get it back in before." She took a few deep breaths, collecting herself a little. Perspiration collected at her brow and lip, despite the cool evening air. Her eyes closed a little under her furrowed brow. "This time" She continued. "I keep almost passing out, and I can't do it properly."

Daryl wasn't a stranger to dislocated fingers, having relocated a few of his own. You can't get into that many barfights without learning a thing or two about minor injuries along the way. He bit at the inside of his mouth as he lifted his eyes to Carrie's.

Her eyes were a dull green, and she looked dazed. The slightest movement of her hand drew a wince and a hiss from her dry, cracked lips. "Do it." She said with a nod.

Daryl turned her hand over so the her palm was facing towards him, fingers pointing up as best they could. He took hold of her middle finger as Carrie's breath hitched.

"Breath." He instructed, concerned at the grey colour taking over her face.

She drew in a few wavering breaths, closing her eyes. Daryl pushed hard into her palm and pulled up on her damaged digit, feeling it click and pop under the pressure. Carrie suddenly slacked and fell back limp. Daryl, still holding on to her hand lowered her softly to the earth. She was a ragged mess, passed out in the dirt of the driveway.

The walker watched her fall with desperate eyes. It moved around slightly to a closer point in the fence, hissing and moaning for a meal.

Daryl stood up and drew his knife from its sheath, as he looked down at Carrie beside the overgrown grass. He walked over to the corpse at the fence.

"Shuddup." He grumbled, before he plunged his blade into its peeling face.

…...

Carrie woke on her bed. A lit candle glowed softly beside her on the bedside table. Daryl had lit it, remembering how she woke last time in a dark room. It wasn't quite night yet but the muted glow of sunset barely lit the boarded up bedroom. Carrie turned her eyes away from the flickering flame and looked at her hand instead. She flexed her grip slowly. The middle finger was swollen and stiff, but when she moved it, there was only a slight twinge of dull pain. She dragged her tired body from the bed, lifting her heavy muscles.

Carrie walked slowly from the bedroom to the kitchen where she could hear her son, talking away in toddler speak and clanging a utensil softly on the wooden table. As she entered the room, Daryl looked up from the kid to Carrie's tired face. He had the remnants of a smile on his lips. Clearly he had been enjoying watching the little boy make a mess of his dinner. Carrie scoffed softly and took a seat beside the boy, opposite Daryl.

She looked into the kid's bowl, curious to see what the man had given her son for dinner. A few chopped up soft-stewed apples and sauce remained in the bowl.

"I didn't really know what ta give him." Daryl said with a shrug. "So I jus' figured apples were ok."

"His favourite" Carrie replied softly with a hoarse voice.

Daryl stood up from his seat and got a glass of water for the exhausted looking woman. He slid it towards her as he sat back down.

"Thanks" She whispered, before drinking small sips.

"Ya look like shit." Daryl frowned, not joking around.

Carrie nodded. "I feel like shit."

"The fuck happened to ya?" He growled.

"I was chopping up wood. Axe slipped from my grip. My finger popped." Her studded reply, as she wiped her good hand across her forehead, feeling all the dirt and dried sweat.

"Pfft." Daryl scoffed at her. "Yeah, well, ya stink."

Carrie just nodded weakly again at Daryl's words. She bent forward and lay her head down on the table in front of her. Her aching body seemed to groan at her slow movements.

Daryl considered her silently for a few minutes before standing up and picking up the yawning kid. He carried the small, sticky child to the sink and washed his face and fingers.

"Say goodnight to ya momma, kid." Daryl said as he walked with the boy past the softly smiling face of Carrie, who lifted her head slightly from the table top. She waved at him and blew him a kiss, which Daryl smirked softly about.

Daryl returned after about 5 minutes. He picked up a second bowl of apples from the bench and stepped to Carrie's side, placing it in front of her along with a spoon.

"Eat." He said, nudging her and sitting her up in her chair.

Carrie picked up the spoon and flexed her arms, loosening the hard muscles. She rolled her neck and felt the crunch in the top of her spine. Daryl walked over to the stove and returned two large pots of water to the flames. It didn't take long before the already simmering hot water was boiling. Carrie watched, curious, as Daryl lifted the first large pot from the heat and carried it into the adjoining room.

"What are you doing?" She asked, as Daryl took the second pot into the small bathroom beside the kitchen.

"You're havin' a bath." He grunted from the other room.

Carrie's eyes widened at his words. The idea of sinking her tired body into a hot tub of water made her tingle at the thought. She ate her bowl of cold stewed apples as Daryl walked out the back door with an empty pot. He returned with it filled with cold tank water.

Daryl poured it, and then a second pot full, in to the tub and tested the water. It was very hot, almost melt-your-skin-off hot, but not quite. The bath was more than half full, but he thought that would probably be enough. Returning to the kitchen, Daryl saw Carrie standing at the sink, leaning back, stretching out her spine.

He walked over to her and took her empty bowl from her hand, placing it in the basin. Daryl guided her by her shoulders to the bathroom. She walked with a smirk on her face at his playful actions. Pushing her into the room, Daryl closed the door behind her, leaving her to it.

Carrie walked exhausted to the small vanity and began stripping the disgusting clothes from her body, looking at her reflection in the cracked mirror. Even by the candle light she could see how haggard she looked. She picked a few stray wood chips from her sweat-soaked hair and pulled the tie from her messy ponytail. She wiped roughly at her face as tears began to cloud her vision.

Carrie knew it was pathetic to cry over something as ridiculous as her dishevelled appearance, but that only spurred her on. Her reflection was thin and had dark circles under her eyes. Her lips were pale and her green eyes were bloodshot. There was so much more to cry over in this world, yet here she was pitifully whimpering over her messed up looks.

She was low. Her mood was sinking into a dark swirl of pain and despair. Her silent sobbing wasn't just about her appearance, it was simply, justifiable sadness. She gripped the small bench top as she wept, naked and sad.

Breathing softly past her shed tears, Carrie collected herself somewhat, enough to function. She walked over and climbed slowly into the steaming water. Although it had cooled a little, it still burned at her cold toes and fingers, her body slowly adjusting to the stinging heat.

Carrie sunk down into the water, slowly submerging herself beneath the surface, wondering if she would have the strength or the will to pull herself back up. Or if she could just let herself drown.

She held her breath and laid flat on the bottom of the tub, only her knees above the water, and her hands gripping the edge of the freestanding bath.

Thoughts of her son, Jack, flitted into her mind, weighing up whether he would be better off with her around or not. Her stomach felt like ice, despite the heat of the water seeping into her muscles. Dark clouds swirled into her mind's eye. 'Daryl could take Jack. He wants to.' she thought. 'And I could just rest in peace.' Only, the dead didn't get to just rest anymore.

It had only been a few seconds but her lungs started to burn, craving fresh air. She held herself under still. Her body was beginning to fight against her will. Carrie's heart was racing as her eyes began to get the same white sparks that invaded her sight earlier. Her thoughts again turned to Jack and Daryl. Realisation trickled into her mind. She did want to live. She wasn't ready to go just yet.

Her lungs stung as she sat up. She gasped heavily at the air and choked as she accidentally inhaled some water along with her oxygen. Coughing and spluttering, Carrie gripped on to the edge of the bath tub. Her choking receded and she took in the air her body was aching for.

A hasty banging at the door from the lounge room side was followed by Daryl's concerned voice. "Ay. You ok? What're ya doin'?"

"I'm… fine." Carrie coughed out, wiping roughly at the water in her eyes, gripping onto the side of the tub with her other hand.

She could hear Daryl's soft footfalls on the wooden floor, as he hesitated and then walked slowly away from the bathroom door.

Carrie wasn't fine, but at least she knew what she wanted.


	8. Chapter 8

Carrie washed the grime from her body and hair. She cleaned herself up with a bar of soap. It had a masculine smell that she couldn't quite place. A sweet, tangy scent that only comes from glycerine soap.

The house didn't have many toiletries. The previous owner clearly wasn't concerned so much with hygiene, as he was with getting high. The paper bag under the sink, which Carrie had found in the bathroom her second day in the new residence, had a single bar of soap, a bottle of mouthwash and a toothbrush still in its packaging. It had been a virtual treasure chest to the cleanliness-starved woman. She had used each sparingly, rationing it out as long as she could. The, once large, bar of glycerine soap was now little more than a matchbox. Tonight though, Carrie needed to feel clean. She needed to scrub away the disgusting guilty feeling she had from the thoughts of leaving her child to this world alone.

After rinsing away the suds, the water had an off-putting, faint, brownish tinge and Carrie decided against soaking for too long. She stood up and wiped the majority of the water from her skin with her hands. Carrie rung the bathwater from her soap-scrubbed hair, before stepping out from the tub. She flexed her hand as she reached for her old, once-white-now-grey towel on the chair beside the door. Her relocated finger felt better, as did her whole body. The deep heat from the bath had made her skin pink and her fingers prune, but it had loosened up every straining and tired muscle in her body.

Carrie dried her skin and rubbed her hair with the thin towel. Wiping at her face, she stood and looked again at herself in the half broken bathroom mirror. The time in the water had done her some good. Her face was slightly blushed from the heat of the water and it seemed to hide the dark circles of her eyes. Her lips had returned to their full, dark state, notwithstanding a slight split where her lips had chapped earlier.

Carrie stepped back from the basin and looked in the mirror at her towel shrouded body. Once upon a time, Carrie would have killed for her now slim figure. She had spent hours at the gym every week trying to shed those last 15 pounds or so. 'Malnutrition looks good on you, dear.' She joked to herself with a dry smirk.

Carrie raked through her hair slightly, brushing it out with her fingers so that it draped forward a little, just sitting over her shoulders. She looked at her reflection with a soft smile that faded from her eyes shortly after. Swallowing the dry, nervous lump in her throat, Carrie walked to the bathroom-lounge room door.

She slowly turned the door handle, trying to ignore away the butterflies churning in the pit of her stomach. Bit-by-bit she opened the door, only a few inches, until she could see Daryl, standing at the lounge window.

The man was bathed in a soft glow from the small fire he had lit in the room's fireplace. The evening had chilled the house somewhat and he figured she would need to stay warm after her bath. It hadn't taken long to warm up the small house, the dry wood put out a lot of heat.

Daryl stood with his arms folded across his chest and button up denim sleeveless shirt. Though he had left his crossbow again on the entry table, he still had his knife hanging from his belt. The brown leather sheath ended just above a fraying hole in his grey jeans. He had shed his leather vest; it was draped over the back of the armchair behind him. Daryl's dark hair brushed over his eyes, with only the stray grey facial hairs hinting to his age. 'He wasn't much older than her, maybe in his early forties', she thought to herself as she studied his striking profile. Carrie had just turned 36 when the outbreaks had first started. She supposed that made her 37 now.

She bit at her lip as she urged herself on, slightly opening a small split and tasting a hint of blood in her mouth. Carrie pushed open the bathroom door slowly and stepped forward into the small living space. Daryl turned his head slightly, looking at the woman in his peripheral vision. He blushed slightly as he realised she only had her towel on.

He looked away again, fighting the tingling sensation in his lower abdomen. He was breathing heavily through his nose as Carrie took a few slow steps towards the fire.

Carrie stopped at the hearth. She held the small towel around her with one hand, holding the other out in front of her under the guise of trying to warm her long fingers by the fire's heat. Despite the warmth of the blaze and the ambient room, her skin broke out in a wave of goose bumps. She looked at the glowing logs in front of her but was really watching Daryl as he shifted slightly on the spot.

Daryl broke, he turned his head slightly towards her and looked at Carrie. His eyes shot to her exposed long legs, disappearing beneath the small towel. He looked up her body and his mouth spasmed slightly at the creamy colour of her bare shoulders. He bit at the feeling in his lips and clenched his fingers slightly.

Carrie turned and lifted her head, meeting Daryl's ice blue eyes with her dark green ones. Her body acted slowly and of its own accord. Her feet moved by themselves, stepping tentatively towards Daryl, with a slight unsteadiness in her movements from trembling knees.

Daryl, tensed by her advance towards him, turned to face her, dropping his arms. Carrie put her long, shaking hands to the knot at her towel, not breaking the eye contact. Daryl's gaze flicked to her fingers and he stepped towards her, putting his calloused hands on top of her soft ones.

"What're ya doin'?" He asked breathlessly. He held her still, giving her a chance to change her mind about what she was about to do.

Carrie took her tender left hand out from under his and wrapped it around the back of his knuckles, holding his hand to her towel.

"I want this." She whispered back, her voice was quivering and husky and breathless. Carrie's visioned blurred just slightly as a tickly sensation leaked into her eyes. She ignored the feeling and stepped forward, pushing into Daryl's hands and closing the space between them. "I just want to feel… good. I want to feel good, and I want to feel it with you." She repeated softly.

Her lusty voice and words made Daryl feel heady and needed. Her light body pushed into his hands as his eyes dropped to her dark lips.

Unsure if it was his hands or hers that pushed away her towel, it fell to the floor noiselessly. Daryl's hands skated roughly over the soft flesh of her breasts and down her sides as she leaned forward. His lips met hers hungrily. The hard, neediness of the kiss, tightened something in Daryl's chest and sent his blood rushing.

She pushed her naked body against his. The denim and buttons of his shirt brushing her sensitive peaks. Daryl's mouth parted and tasted Carrie's sweet lips. The slight metallic taste of blood from her split lip flavouring the kiss in a oddly enjoyable way. Her tongue tentatively brushed at his lips. Tilting his head slightly, he sunk into the kiss and licked at her tongue. The quick brush had felt like electricity at first contact.

Daryl's hands had wrapped around her body, pinning her to his chest. His kisses became deeper as he breathed in her clean scent. Carrie's hands slid over Daryl's shoulders and draped around the back of his neck. The coppery flavoured kiss turned the butterflies in Carrie's gut into a flame in her womb. Her deep broiling hunger for Daryl made her ache between her thighs. She clenched her pelvic floor muscles trying to relieve some of the need, but only succeeded in rubbing her pelvis into Daryl's hard length.

The feeling made Daryl suddenly weakened at the knees. He pulled the kiss back slightly and slid his hands further down her back. Embracing her, he bent only slightly and pulled Carrie's body against his. As he stood, he lifted her slowly up, so her toes only brushed the floor. Drawing back from the kiss, Carrie looked into Daryl's eyes. He breathed softly into her face as his gaze skated over her flushed skin and her inky green eyes.

Kissing Carrie on her pouting, red lips, he carried her without hurry towards the couch behind her. Bumping softly into the edge of the sofa with his shin, he stepped back a little and lowered Carrie's feet to the ground. Daryl's hands slid back up to her breasts, giving her a soft squeeze and a deep lash of the tongue, before pressing his fingertips to her shoulders.

Carrie sat down on the couch as Daryl leaned over her. The sudden lack of heat from Daryl's body tightened her nipples as he pulled away from their kiss. He pecked one last kiss on her jaw as he got to his knees at her feet. He knelt either side of her toes and put his hands to her thighs, getting his first true look at her exposed flesh.

Carrie's heart raced hard in her chest as Daryl's eyes flicked over the various points of interest. She didn't feel judged or nervous, only patience, despite what Daryl was currently looking at.

Daryl frowned as he ran his fingers over the pink, puckered scars. Former bullet holes riddled her body. Two in her left side at her waist, each creased and jagged. Daryl's heart beat loudly as his hand continued down her body to her left thigh. Three more studded, fresh scars, sullied her white flesh. Carrie studied his face, while he examined her. Concern darkened his expression. He huffed a small, shaky breath of realisation at why Carrie had always favoured her right side and very occasionally walked with a mostly well-hidden limp.

Daryl understood scars. They were more than just raised, discoloured flesh. Scars were also painful memories and everyday reminders of a torturous event from the past. He closed his eyes briefly, telling himself to look away and stop making her feel self-conscious. When Daryl opened his eyes again, he looked at Carrie's face, expecting tears. Her, almost stony expression, disarmed him slightly. Somewhat relieved that he wasn't going to have to comfort a crying woman, Daryl reached up behind her head and pulled her forward to his lips.

Carrie had waited patiently for Daryl to ask about the damaged flesh. When he didn't, she was slightly surprised, but pleased that they could continue what they had been doing instead. Daryl's hands cupped Carrie's face and held her forwards to him. His tongue explored into her mouth as she pushed her soft lips to his, her tongue meeting his with a slow swathe. Daryl's chest tightened as her long hands skated across his front.

Her fingers pushed gently into the hard muscle of Daryl's upper body. Bringing her hands together she found the buttons of his denim shirt and began opening his top, fumbling slightly with her shaky digits. Daryl's hands slid quickly over Carrie's tight shoulders and down her back. His fingers brushed over her ribs before settling at her hips. Urging Carrie to shift forward on the couch, he pushed his body between her knees. Carrie unhooked the last button of Daryl's shirt as he put his hands under her thighs, lifting them and opening her long legs, as her lips bit at his erratically.

Carrie pushed Daryl's shirt down his broad shoulders and moved her hips forward in the same action. The shirt hooked at Daryl's elbows, his hands still holding at her knees. Carrie sat forward on the edge of the sofa, heatedly bringing her chest to Daryl's face. Daryl shook off his shirt before he slid his rough hands up her over her hips and splayed his fingers across her back, holding her to him as he leaned into her soft skin.

Skating his lips over her nipples, the greying wisps of hair on his chin tickled at the sensitive tissue, causing Carrie to suck in a quick breath. She closed her eyes as Daryl nuzzled into her chest. Nipping and kissing softly, he moved from one to the other before continuing down, planting a trail of wet dots down her stomach, pushing her slightly to lay back.

He edged her legs open wider. Carrie wasn't some giggly teenaged girl. She was an adult, getting everything she needed from a man. Her body moved with Daryl and she lifted her hips slightly, so that she was perched on the very edge of the couch.

Daryl could smell her, everywhere. The scent of her sex boiled Daryl's balls as he moved his lips gently to her soft, downy pubic hair.

Trailing his hand tenderly up the inside of her thigh, his fingers stopped as they reached her hot south lips. Carrie felt electrified as Daryl's fingers began to skate over her slick entrance. Daryl nuzzled forward into her sex. He kissed the wet opening, tasting her salty-sweetness on his lips. His fingers continued to circle her, spreading her slick liquid, as he pushed his tongue hard against her clit.

Carrie sucked a hissing breath through her clenched teeth. Her body was stone still as she let Daryl do as he pleased.

He lifted her thighs onto his shoulders, her long calves draped over his broad back. Carrie's toes curled in ecstasy as he probed her again with his flat, hot tongue. Daryl slid his fingers along her slit, searching for her small entrance as he lapped at her hard bud. His middle and index finger together stopped at the opening. He turned his hand over, the tips of his digits not leaving the hollow. His eyes had been closed, concentrating on his work. As he pushed his fingers forward, easing inside her, he looked up to Carrie's face.

Her eyes were snapped shut and her face was twisted into a look that could either be frenzied bliss or agony. The moan that shuddered softly from her dark red lips told him it was the former. He put his face back to her opening and smiled softly to himself, then again lashed her with his firm tongue.

Carrie's hands gripped onto the sofa either side of her. Her hips rolled slightly, matching Daryl's finger strokes. He hooked his free arm around her thigh and held her down at her pelvic bone with soft pressure from his open hand. His fingers inside her curled and stroked her silky walls as his tongue rubbed at her sensitive bundle of nerves. He could feel her twitching from the inside.

Carrie was on fire. Heated waves engulfed her body as she began to shake, emanating from her core. Daryl was stoking the flames with his every movement, every touch. Electricity sparked and coursed through her veins to her finger tips. Carrie rolled her head back and panted shallow stabbing breaths with every stoke of Daryl's hard fingers inside her.

Daryl was the first to admit he didn't really know what he was doing, but he seemed to be doing something right. He pressed his thumb to her clit and rubbed it, out of rhythm with his fingers. The unpredictable sudden change, shot through Carrie, like lightning straight to her womb. She bucked uncontrollably with her sudden orgasm, as Daryl tried to keep his hands on and inside her. He slowed his rubbing as she lowered her hips back to the couch.

Carrie's legs trembled as Daryl removed his fingers and just licked at her slit softly. Every slip of his gentle tongue over her sensitive bud sending rippling shocks to her toes.

Daryl lapped one last time at her worked entrance, before lifting and lowering Carrie's slender thighs from his shoulders. He rubbed at his hard dick, constricted in his now tight jeans, as he surveyed his work and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Carrie's ragged breath began to slow. Her face and chest glowed a soft pink blush. Her dark lips, wet and slightly puffy from her biting them, as she had tried to stop herself from moaning too loud.

Daryl, sitting back on his heals, kissed Carrie inside her knee. The tender brush of his lips and facial hair on her sensitised skin made her shudder slightly. Opening her eyes, Carrie focused on Daryl's soft expression. He harboured a wisp of a frown on his thin line of a mouth, as his blue eyes searched for a green light. He wanted to take her. Barely holding himself in check, he waited for her approval, aching to have her.

Carrie breathed a tight sigh and sat forward on the couch. She put her hands to his shoulders as he brought his up to her waist. She pushed a soft kiss to his eager mouth, parting her lips and tasting herself on his tongue. Continuing forward, Carrie moved off the seat and pushed her body against Daryl's, straddling his thighs. His hands moved around to her back, holding her tightly to himself, as she sunk deeper into a lavishing kiss. His hands were pressed flat against her hot skin, one at her lower back, the other between her shoulder blades. Carrie's finger's trailed down Daryl's back idly, noticing the lumps and ridges on his skin.

She broke away from their kiss and leant over him to look at his back. This position raised her chest to Daryl's eye line. He leaned forward, taking a mouthful of her flesh as she studied the aged scars at the top of his shoulders. She closed her eyes and breathed a deep sigh, Daryl's mouth drawing her back to their activity. She kissed him on the side of his head, as he sucked and licked at her hard nipple.

Carrie drew her arms back and placed her hands on Daryl's strong shoulders. She pushed him back slightly, away from her collarbone where his trail of kisses had led him. He opened his eyes and looked at her with a smouldering glare. He was worked up. His hardness was threatening to rip from his jeans and she was pushing him away.

With a slight smile to Daryl's determined stare, Carrie pushed at his shoulders. She stood up and walked away, into the bathroom.

Daryl had been about to get up and follow her, irritably convinced this was the worst mood swing ever, when she suddenly reappeared. She walked back to him and sat on the couch in front of him again.

She smiled wickedly at his sour expression, knowing full-well what she had just done to him.

Daryl watched as Carrie reached forward and put her hands to his belt, the corner of a foil condom packet visible in her hand. He realised what she had left for.

Taking over from Carrie's long fingers, Daryl undid his fly and pushed down his jeans. His cock emerged from his shoved down underwear and he snatched the condom from Carrie's hand.

Daryl stood up in front of Carrie, kicking off his loose boots and stepping out of his clothes. His body was a tight, broad, sight for sore eyes. As Daryl tore open the condom foil, Carrie dropped from the couch to her knees in front of him.

Daryl's knees almost buckled beneath him as she took hold of his prick and lavished his tip with a broad flat tongue. His hands automatically fell to the top of her head as he tried to steady himself. Carrie pushed her mouth over the head of his dick and Daryl's fingers curled in her still damp hair. Each plunge and slow withdraw, edged Daryl towards bliss.

He was not going to blow his load in her mouth, he was determined not to. But if he let this go on for much longer, he wasn't going to be able to stop himself from gripping tighter into her hair and burying himself into her hot wet mouth.

With a roll of his head, he regrettably pushed Carrie away. His cock leaving her red lips with a soft pop. Hurriedly, Daryl rolled the latex sheath over his hard length. He picked Carrie up from the floor and pushed her forcefully back on the couch before cupping her calves in his rough hands. He turned her slightly, opening her legs, leaning forward into her down the length of the sofa.

He didn't go slow. This was needed deep within both of them. He needed to bury himself inside this beautiful, damaged woman and she needed to be filled by this intense man.

He held his dick and pushed himself inside her wet entrance. The pressure from her firm walls sending chills down his spine. Daryl groaned as he inched deeper inside Carrie. Carrie whimpered as he stretched her and filled her. Holding on to Carrie's body, he rest his weight on his elbows. Her arms and legs tangled around him, holding him, but not constricting his movements.

He rocked hard against her, his pelvic bone grinding into her clit, and again. Carrie's head swam as he thrust inside her with deep, vigorous strokes. His hard length drawing a pant from her mouth with each faster surge inside her tight sex. He huffed into her face, mixing his breath with hers. Daryl's skin tingled up his spine, each push into her a blissful ache.

Moaning softly, Carrie looked up and met Daryl's eyes. His dilated blue eyes, hooded with desire, explored her green depths as he plunged forward into her with his unrelenting rocking. She bit at her lip lightly as her body shook in pleasure with each stab. Daryl soon felt his actions building a hard boil inside himself and slowed his pace to a rolling grind, looking to her soft wet mouth.

He kissed her, slow and deep. His tongue slid over her teeth before finding hers, meeting him with a soft lash. Carrie slid her hands, from she had been clawing at his back with her blunt, long fingers, to his hard chest. She pushed him back and he moved away from her slightly.

Tilting beneath him, Carrie indicated her desires with a quick look to the floor beside the couch. Daryl pushed his mouth to hers before he climbed from the sofa to the floor, Carrie following him down. She straddled him over his hips and softly ground herself down on to him, along his hard length. Daryl took in a sharp breath and put his hand to his cock, guiding it back to her core as she raised herself up and hovered above him.

Carrie slid over him, burying his dick inside her again. She rocked tantalisingly slow, feeling the pressure of his length slide in and out. She hissed slightly and rolled her head back. Daryl rest his hands at her hips, holding on to her firmly, his fingers slightly cupping her rear and left thumb drawing small circles on the skin below her waist.

She leaned forward, pressing her chest to his. Daryl's eyes closed slightly at the slick feeling of her tight cunt sliding over his dick. Carrie brushed his hair away from his eyes, scratching her fingertips through his scalp, almost making him cum there and then.

Her rolling hips, pressed her down onto him. Carrie kissed Daryl, tender and wet, as his hands slid up her back. He held her to himself, hugging her tightly, as he slowly lifted and rocked his pelvis up to meet her actions. He pushed his hips up from the ground, each soft dig causing a weak groan to escape Carrie's lips. The tender movements sending waves of goose bumps over her back with each agonisingly slow inch. He held her affectionately, a strange, unspoken message passing between their gaze. Carrie's eyes were locked on to Daryl's, speaking volumes without saying a single thing. Her hurt and anguish, her unstable mind, her dark clouds, brushed away with his slowly skating palms. She was there with him, that was all that mattered anymore. Daryl lifted his head from the floor beneath him and kissed her softly on the mouth.

With a last swipe of his lips, Daryl moved his hands back to her hips, giving a squeeze before dropping his hold on her and pushing himself up on his elbows. Carrie sat up on her knees, Daryl still inside her. She brushed her hair back from her face, Daryl's eyes roving over her breath-taking body. Carrie dropped her hands to his abdomen. Her fingers dragged lazily down Daryl's stomach, drawing in the soft, sparse trail of hair from his navel down. She bent forward and bit at his lips. Her unexpected hard kiss stirred something else inside Daryl. She did it again, leaning into him she kissed him harder, nipping at his mouth, biting at his lips.

Just as Daryl raised his hands to grab onto her again, she lifted herself off of him. She knelt beside him and drew her fingers down his side, circling once around the scar left from the bolt he fell on in the ravine. He sat up quickly, a soft scowl darkening his face as he got to his knees. He was intense and his expression ignited something in Carrie's gut.

Carrie kissed him, hard, as she pressed her body to his. She split her lip again, causing her to wince slightly, but she pressed on. Again their kiss tasted like copper, the tang adding a wild edge to their biting mouths. Her tongue lashed playfully at his, her lips sucking slightly on his mouth.

Daryl pulled his lips from hers as his hands wrapped around her firm behind. He squeezed her flesh and dropped his mouth to her neck, incidentally nudging her face towards the couch. He kneaded her rear and sucked deeply at the sweet skin beneath her jaw.

Carrie started panting at his hot actions. Her body needed to feel him inside her again, deeper.

Turning slightly in Daryl's arms, Carrie placed her hand on the couch to her right. Daryl moved with her, giving her space to turn properly but keeping his lips to her shoulder.

Shifting behind her, Daryl scooped up the curtain of damp brown hair that brushed along the top of Carrie's back. He drew it to the side and kissed at the skin behind her ear. Pushing his body against her back, he put his free hand to his cock and drew his hard dick down her behind as she moved her legs further apart. Feeling forward with the head of his prick, he found Carrie's slit entrance.

Carrie bent over the couch and tilted her ass up in the air. Daryl eased forward into her, savouring the amazing feeling, his eyes clenched tightly shut, breathless. Her tight, slick walls again gripping him firmly as he rocked in deeper and deeper.

Carrie seethed and hissed as Daryl pressed into her. His hard length sinking inside her hot centre. When it felt like she couldn't possibly take anymore, Daryl edged out just an inch before sinking back in faster. A soft moan escaped Carrie's lips and Daryl pressed his lips again to her shoulder in response.

He dug in and out from Carrie's tight core, picking up the pace with each new stroke. Carrie gripped onto the soft material of the couch and bucked slightly when Daryl hit her cervix, igniting her fervour.

The animal side of Daryl assumed control. The smell of sex and sweat filled the room and it consumed his senses, wetting his lips and driving him harder. He held on to Carrie's hips as he bumped, again and again, forward into her, deep and intense. His hot breath fanned over her slightly sweating back.

Carrie groaned low as he put his forehead to her spine. He felt the vibrations rumble through her torso. Daryl's right hand came around the front to Carrie's abdomen, his left drew up the inside of her thigh. His soft touch, mismatched with his jagged, deep thrusts, made Carrie shudder. She felt herself boiling inside. Nearing the peak of her ecstasy, Carrie whimpered softly in the back of her throat.

Daryl's fingers continued up the inside of her leg, nearing her centre. She new that as soon as he touched her, she was going to cum, hard.

Sweat dripped from Daryl's body to Carrie's back. He started to growl, low in his chest, as he held her tighter and drove himself hard and deep inside of her.

Daryl's fingers moved that last inch to Carrie's cunt, pressing softly into her folds and finding her clit. The touch was the last of her. She shuddered violently, bucking against Daryl. Her orgasm racking her whole body, clenching and crashing though her entire nervous system. His hand at her stomach moved around on to her hip.

Carrie moaned and shook as Daryl held on to her thrashing body and pushed himself hard inside her. He blew his cum with his last bucking stabs of his hips and pressed his perspiration-laced forehead against Carrie's spine, moaning into her flesh. Holding himself there, his breath puffed over her sensitised skin.

Groaning, Daryl pulled out from Carrie's abused core. She slumped forward to the couch cushion, her body humming and vibrating inside-out. Daryl sat back on his heals, then decided he needed to lie down before he blacked out or something. He eased himself to the floor between the couch and the coffee table, lying flat on his back. The buzz in his head seemed to dull, the only noise in the warm room was their slowing breathing.

Daryl drew on what strength he had left to raise his right hand and poke Carrie on her foot. She lifted her heavy head and turned slightly to look at Daryl. His poke had been a request for her to join him on the floor.

Carrie slumped slightly, dragging herself from the sofa to lay at Daryl's side. She fell gracefully to the floor next to him, a landslide of arms and legs. Her head rest on his bicep as she sprawled against his side.

Turning his head, Daryl's tired gaze scanned over Carrie's blushed, sweaty face and her swollen red lips. Her hair a loose mess of damp, soft waves, fanned over her neck and shoulder. Her beautiful features, not burdened by stress, looked younger and delicate. Carrie opened her eyes slowly, sensing Daryl's stare. Her eyes so dilated, they all but black out the thin deep green trim.

Carrie looked at Daryl, her mind blank as it was still caressed in her blissful ecstasy. She simply took in his soft blue eyes, outlined by shallow crows feet, his thin mouth pulled in softly to a slight smirk and his wisping facial hair. He regarded her as slowly as she did him.

Carrie leaned into him and pressed her lips softly to his. Daryl lifted his left hand and brushed her hair away behind her ear.

_***Hope you enjoyed your 5200+ words of pure sexual fantasy. Cold shower time ;-)**_

_**I hope got in front of you anwoaf, thanks for your multiple on going reviews. Made my day.**_


	9. Chapter 9

After sourcing some clothes, Carrie curled up in the bed beside her son.

Daryl had dozed softly on the floor beside the couch for about half an hour, with Carrie tucked in against him. Only once the fire had start to die down and the room began to chill slightly did either want to move. Carrie had silently admonished herself when she realised that no one was on watch.

Sitting up, she pulled her hair back from her face. She stood up, holding her ponytail and went into the bathroom. Daryl slid the used rubber from his dick and flicked it into the low burning fire. He rolled himself up off the floor and sought after his clothes, his eyes flicking briefly to the ajar bathroom door.

When Carrie returned she had her hair pulled back in a tight knot at the back of her head. She had on a fresh white tank top and a pair of light blue cotton panties. Walking over to the fire place, she crouched down to pick up her discarded towel. Daryl watched her move silently as he pulled on his jeans. She met his eyes accidentally and gave him a brief half-smile. Blushing a little, Carrie turned and went back into the bathroom to hang her towel.

When she came back, Carrie entered through the kitchen door with a glass of water for Daryl. He took the glass with a quiet "Thanks" and drank deeply. Carrie stood beside him, tentatively touching her split, swollen lip. Daryl put the glass down on the small coffee table and put his hand to Carrie's jaw, tilting her head back slightly so he could see her mouth properly. He grazed his thumb along her bottom lip with care. Carrie let him hold her for just a moment before pulling slowly away from his touch. She turned her face away, looking to the dying fire.

They stood there silently for about a minute before Daryl looked at her again, silently confused at her changed demeanor. Carrie was her severe, astute self again, her arms folded across her abdomen and her posture firm and tall, as she gazed in to the glowing pile of embers.

"Go to bed Carrie." Daryl instructed with a soft voice, turning to take up his position at the lounge window.

Carrie slowly turned away from the fire, heading towards her bedroom. She briefly paused at the doorway to look at Daryl's turned away form.

She climbed into the bed quietly after pulling on a pair of jeans. Carrie drew her fingers over her son's slumbering face, brushing his hair back softly. She lay her head back on the pillow and let her mind swirl in the torrent of good and bad thoughts, feelings and emotions, and the incredible reminiscence of what had happened earlier.

…...

The morning came around quickly enough. Daryl's eyes were heavy, but he had kept to his watch. Carrie slunk out from the bedroom, sending Daryl a brief tight-lipped, confusing smile, before shuffling in to the kitchen. Her hair somewhat askew from her sleep.

Daryl just watched her, in no mood to play 'guess which emotional state Carrie is going to be in today'. He just hoped it was going to be a quiet one. He scratched at the back of his head and followed her through the house.

Daryl sat down at the table, as Carrie place a few bits of wood into the stove to light a fire. He leaned forward and rest his weight on his forearms upon the table. His fingers picked at a bit of skin beside the nailbed of his index finger. Daryl looked up through his fringe at Carrie, as she walked to the table and sat down, having lit the stove and placed a kettle on to boil. Her eyes were a soft green in the morning light, and she smiled a genuine grin at his questioning expression.

"I'm ok Daryl." She whispered with a smirk. She extended her hand and pushed it between Daryl's fiddling fingers. He ran his fingertips over her soft skin and encompassed her long hands in his own. Relieved that she was good, he placed an unexpected kiss on the inside of her wrist. "Are you ok?" She asked, half joking.

"Pfft." He rolled his eyes at her and her cheeky grin. "I'm fine."

She sat there with her hand in his. A comfortable silence until the water began to boil on the stove. Carrie reluctantly pulled her hand back and stood up to make coffee.

The black bitter liquid invigorated Daryl somewhat as he watched her potter around the kitchen, preparing to make breakfast. Hearing the kid in the bedroom, Daryl went and collected the boy, bringing him to the dining table.

The three quietly enjoyed the breakfast of oats and blackberries. After a they chatted mindlessly for a while about where she found the blackberries and what other stocks she had tucked away, Daryl turned the conversation to what was really on his mind.

"So, ya gonna tell me about the bullet holes?" He asked looking at his hands.

"Do you like to talk about your scars?" She deflected, answering his question with a question. She looked at the sneer that jagged on to his face as he visibly bristled before her and thought better of her words. She didn't feel like a fight this morning. "The men, the ones that tried to take this place." She began, stopping his building irritation in it's tracks. "They got me with a few rounds in my side before I could get back in to the house. I picked them off with the rifle as they climbed under the fence. There was only four of them and they thought they had killed me so I managed to take them out pretty easily." She sighed, her expression bitter at the memory of having to kill four living humans.

Daryl bit at the inside of his mouth, visibly distressed at her story. Carrie thumbed at her lips recalling the rest of it.

"It was only me and Jack, so I locked him in the bedroom with a few toys and some apple and got out my small stash of gauze, alcohol, tweezers and sutures. I downed two of the Oxycodine with some vodka and waited for it to kick in. As you can imagine I was a bit bleary eyed but I managed to keep conscious." She grimaced, recalling the puddle of blood she sat in in the bathroom, as she removed each of the bullets. "My stiches were a bit jagged and rough but I managed to close them all. I passed out for a while after, and woke to the one and only time I had ever heard Jack cry."

Daryl had been stoic her whole story, sitting there fiddling with his hands. When she had finished, he pressed his hands to the table top and considered his response.

"Carrie," He said, heavily. "I can't promise you that comin' with me to the prison, you will be safe and sound for the rest a yer lives." Daryl said with a nod to the boy beside her. "But I can promise ya that if you choose to stay out here, your luck will run out…"

"I know Daryl" She cut him off. "I'm tired and… in a bad way." She looked up from her twisting hands and picked up Daryl's piercing gaze. She had known before she got out of bed this morning that if he asked her to go with him back to the prison, she would say yes, despite her fear of the people. Carrie had scared herself with her dark thoughts in the bath and then felt so safe in Daryl's hands. She couldn't stay out here anymore. "We're coming with you, to the prison."

Daryl sighed a weighty relieved breath. He closed his eyes for a moment, silently thanking whoever was listening. When he opened his eyes again, a broad grin slid across his face.

"What?" Carrie asked, returning his smile.

"Good lord." Daryl replied with a smirk. "If I hada known last night was all it was gonna take to convince ya, I would have done it a long time ago."

…...

Daryl collected his crossbow and walked down the front steps, shrugging on his vest and mounting the weapon to the forks at the front. Carrie followed him with Jack on her hip, the gate keys in her hand. She had told Daryl to come back tomorrow morning with his truck and they would pack up all her stuff in the two vehicles.

"Give me a day to get it all together and then I'll follow you back." She said as Daryl swung his leg over his bike and looked back at her and the boy.

"I'm here. Tomorrow." He spoke slowly in a growl. He wasn't happy about leaving her again but knew that she had to leave on her terms. He stood up and kicked started the bike, the loud rumble causing Jack to jump slightly in Carrie's arms. She smiled at the kid and walked over to the gate.

One handed, she unlocked the gate and pulled it open as Daryl walked the bike forward. Daryl stopped in front of her. He reached up and scuffed the little boy's hair, meeting Carrie's gaze with a soft smirk. She smiled back at him.

"Tomorrow." She mouthed. Which he nodded to and pulled out from the property.

…...

Daryl was in a fuckin' great mood when he pulled in through the prison gates. As he stopped the bike in the car yard, Carl and Rick walked over to him from their post at the inner gates.

"How's it goin' man?" Daryl asked Carl as he faked a punch to the kids chest.

Carl flinched before replying with a puzzled smile. "Everthing is good." he said, looking up to his dad beside him with a questioning expression.

"Yer tellin' me." Daryl said as he dropped the kick stand and hoped off the motorbike.

"Well you're in a good mood." Rick said, chuffing at Daryl's elation. "Does this mean what I think it means?"

Carl looked curiously between the two men as Daryl subtly nodded his head.

"Yeah, I'm goin' back with the truck tomorrow." He replied, out the side of his mouth. "She has a lotta stuff to bring with her, …and her kid." Daryl added, looking back at Carl.

"How old is her kid?" Carl asked, tilting his head.

"Old enough that we're gonna have to start a daycare centre with 'im and Lil' Asskicker." Daryl joked.

…...

Daryl had brought a half dozen rabbits back to the prison, courtesy of Carrie's snares. Beth and Hershel had stewed them up with a selection of vegetables from their yard.

Daryl stood at the side waiting until everyone had gotten some before he stepped forward for his. Carol appeared in front of him and pushed a bowl into his hands.

"You always wait." She said softly, a small smile on her lips.

Daryl took the bowl and the kind gesture along with it as a good sign. Maybe Carol was feeling better towards him since their last talk.

"I hear you managed to convince her to join us." She asked with raised eyebrow. "Carrie, was it?"

Daryl nodded as he ate his meal. Just letting Carol do all the talking for now.

"Well I'm happy you won't be going out there alone anymore." She shrugged and walked away, offering him a brief smile as she turned.

"Carol, wait." Daryl jogged over to her side. She didn't stop walking, but turned her face in his direction to hear what he had to say. He put his hand to her shoulder and stopped her movement. He stood in front of her and huffed slightly. "I'm ..sorry. For how everything has been lately. Can we jus'…" He shrugged, not knowing the words he was looking for.

"We're okay." She smiled. "I'm sorry as well, …for my part."

Daryl sighed and stepped back a little, he lifted his bowl slightly with a gesture of 'thanks again' and went to walk awkwardly away.

"Hey." Carol halted him. "So what is she like? You haven't told us much." She crossed her arms over and smiled defiantly at Daryl.

Daryl was lost for words. He thought about all the things he could say about Carrie. Crazy, being the first to come to mind. Beautiful, severe, strong, an absolute fucking rollercoaster. None of which he thought Carol would want to hear. "You'll see tomorrow." He said with a hint of a smile.

…...

Daryl had left the prison shortly after breakfast. He didn't want to wait too late in the day.

"Don't wanna loose the light." He mumbled to Rick as he placed his crossbow in the passenger seat of the old blue truck.

"No problem." Rick answered. "You all get here safe. We'll see you when you get back." Rick tapped on the hood of the truck and turned away, walking to the inner gate to open it for Daryl.

Daryl drove through the yard, pausing at the gate tower. Michonne opened the gate as Daryl looked up to the top of the guard tower. Carol waved a few fingers and smiled at him from above. Daryl held up his hand in a brief wave and proceeded through, watching the gates close in his rear-view mirror.

…...

Driving down the bumpy dirt track to Carrie's property, Daryl brushed his hair back from his eyes and returned his arm to the window sill. He still wondered how exactly Carrie was going to fit in to their group of people, she wasn't like everybody else. 'Her boy Jack will be better off.' He thought to himself. 'Kids need other kids. Brothers and sisters.'

But Carrie? Different story.

'Maybe she just needs a bit of stability.' He resolved. '…And some fucking sleep.'

Noticing a thick tower of black smoke disappearing into the sky, coming from the direction of Carrie's house, Daryl dropped his trail of thoughts and put his foot down on the gas.

Daryl's heart raced as the large chain link fence came into view. Nausea and an ice chill built in Daryl's chest at the sight of the wire fence. Busted wide open, one gate hanging by a single hinge. The large vehicle's tyre tracks of The Governors hummer, dug into the dirt before the gate.

Daryl stopped the truck short of the property, picking up his crossbow as he flung open the driver's side door.

CAN YOU SAVE HER DARYL?

The large orange words, spray painted across the front of the white peeling weatherboard house, reflecting Daryl's own unspeakable thoughts. The front door was open, swaying slightly in the wind.

The black smoke was coming from her burnt out husk of an El Camino. Parked, where she had left it, a few yards from the side of the house. The breeze picking up and swirling ashes from the dying embers of the vehicle.

Daryl already had his crossbow to his sights. He jogged quickly to the front door. As far as he could tell The Governor and his men were gone. But he was still running into the unknown.

Carrie. Jack. 'Can you save her?'.

He stepped past the threshold, listening for any sounds from within the house. A deep groaning woman's voice and a venomous hissing gurgle, came from the bedroom in front of him, to his right. Sweeping his eyes quickly over what he could see of the lounge and kitchen, Daryl stepped forward to the open door way of the bedroom.

Carrie was on the floor, her back to the wardrobe. Her hands were bound behind her back and her mouth was gagged with a filthy white rag, dotted with blood. One corpse lay beside her already, as she kicked at the large decaying male walker that was bearing down on top of her, scrabbling and clawing at her jeans. Daryl had hardly stepped into the scene before he let his bolt fly into the brain of the hissing corpse. He ran forward and kicked its slumping form off of her before it had even fallen to the ground.

He dropped to his knee in front of her and unsheathed the knife at his belt. He made quick work of the gag, cutting it at the knot behind her ear. Her pale face was streaked with trails of wet and dried tears and blood. Her left eye socket and jaw, swollen and discoloured from a fresh beating.

"Jack." She said as soon as the cloth dropped from her mouth. "Get him out!" She leant forward slightly and looked over her shoulder to the wardrobe behind her.

Daryl moved to drag her out of the way of the robe, needing to make sure the kid was safe. As he tried to slide her away from the large wooden doors, a sharp cry came from Carrie. Fresh tears streaked down her face. Daryl stopped and looked behind her. Carrie's hands were bound behind her back and tethered to the wooden wardrobe by a long length of the razor wire from the chain link fence. She was sitting in a large pool of her own blood. Her wrists a mess of shallow slices. It looked like she had been struggling against the sharp blades of the wire for hours. The latest movement forced one particular razor deeper into the flesh where her thumb meets her wrist.

"Fuck. Hold on." Daryl said, getting to his feet. Wiping the sweat and hair from his eyes, he ran into the front room where he had previously seen a set of bolt cutters.

The front room had been trashed. Tables upended, dirt everywhere and all Carrie's weapons and tools long gone. Daryl kicked at the door, splintering it as he turned back to Carrie's room, running his fingers through his hair.

He returned to Carrie on the floor, ripping open his denim over shirt and wrapping it around his right hand.

Carrie's dark green, wet eyes looked into Daryl's as he nodded at her. She leaned forward as Daryl put his bound hand to the razor wire tether. His feet to the wardrobe base, Daryl gripped the blades and pulled, feeling the wire slice easily through the cotton shroud, into his palm and fingers. He ripped the wire from where it was nailed into the robe base.

Carrie falling slightly aside, his wound ignored, Daryl opened the robe and found the small boy, crying silent tears on the floor. He picked him up and brought him out to his mother.

Carrie sobbed loudly when she saw her boy. Daryl placed the boy on the floor between his mothers legs. She leant forward and pushed her mouth to his head and face. Doing more damage to her wrists as she tried to hold her son.

Daryl stood up and moved behind her. He looked at the bloody mess. The flesh from her wrists was peeling back in slices everywhere a blade rest against her skin. Daryl knelt down and carefully unwound the wire as Carrie tried to keep still. He sliced open his fingertip on one blade but ignored it. Trying not to do any further damage, Daryl peeled the last length of the coiled wire from her wrist. He helped her move her sore arms around to in front of her. He tore the shredded shirt into two, dressing her wounds with the makeshift bandage, binding it tight to stop further blood loss.

Small miracles, the boy looked unharmed. But Carrie was beaten and broken. Her eyes rolled slightly back as she wavered on the spot, still clutching her son to herself.

"Carrie! Stay awake." Daryl hissed sharply. "Get on your feet."

Daryl picked up Jack, holding the boy to his chest as he lifted his crossbow and held it out in front of him. Moving to the door frame and looking out, he could see his truck beyond the gates. He turned back to see Carrie, as she pushed herself up off the floor.

Her right boot slipped a little, as she slid in a mixture of her own blood and the congealed gore on her boot from the skull of the first walker she had taken down alone. She swayed on the spot before moving forwards slowly. Her limp prominent, Carrie hopped slightly as she nursed her, again, dislocated finger. She breathed heavily through her nose, squinting as her left eye stung from the blood and bruising.

Daryl couldn't help her walk _and _keep them safe. He carried the child and aimed his crossbow straight ahead as he walked slowly to the front door. He looked out around the front yard, making sure they were still alone. He eyed a lone walker, making it's way to the busted open gates. Carrie startled him slightly as she shuffled around the door frame of the bedroom, too much like a walker herself.

The yard was clear. The Governor, Martinez and Shumpert, nowhere to be seen, having decided they didn't have to stick around to witness their latest attack in psychological warfare.

Daryl ran across the yard to the truck. He shot a bolt into the shambling corpse as he neared it. Opening the car door and placing the kid on the bench seat, Daryl climbed in and started the vehicle. He drove into the property and stopped at the front door. Daryl jumped out, taking long strides to Carrie as she appeared at the house's front door.

Instead of walking to the stairs, she turned right after stepping out of the open doorway. Shuffling slowly down the porch, she dropped to her knees under the broken window. Daryl ran up the steps to Carrie's side. She brushed some broken glass aside with her bandaged wrist, and dug her weak fingers into a small gap in the deck boards. Daryl kneeled down beside her and grabbed on to her wrist. He withdrew her hand and pulled his knife from it's sheath. Prying the loose board up, he looked beneath. A black backpack was just within arms reach. He grabbed the bag and helped Carrie back to her feet.

He walked her slowly down the porch steps and into the truck, dropping the bag at her feet with his crossbow. Climbing back into his seat, he leaned over and pulled Carrie's seatbelt around her. He pushed her son to her side and belted him in too, tightening the lap sash as far as it would go. He turned the blue truck and drove from the property.

Carrie had blacked out. She slumped over slightly in her seat.

…...

Daryl held the kid tightly to his side as he got out from the truck. Carol, Maggie, Carl and Hershel made their way over to the vehicle when it came to a stop inside the prison's inner gates. Carol's eyes instantly shot to the small boy Daryl was holding. Seeing these people made them real and she felt sick at her own actions from earlier. It was just a family and Daryl had been helping them.

Carol jogged forward and Daryl passed her Jack, making his way to the passenger side door. He opened the car slowly, as Carrie was now slumped against the door. He caught her as she fell to the side, Maggie stepping forward to help him.

The drive back to the prison home had been a sickeningly tense journey. Carrie had been unconscious the whole ride and Daryl kept checking to make sure she was still breathing. Unknowingly, it was the same as she had done for him not long ago. He slid the boy in his seat, holding Jack to his side, as he cautiously drove to the prison, looking for any sign of the asshole he was going to murder with his bare hands.

Now in the yard, Rick and Glenn approaching, Daryl lifted Carrie's unconscious body from the truck's passenger seat and placed her on the long wooden table Hershel was indicating to. She looked deathly pale in the stark white of the overcast sky. Her colour only broken by the tinge of green and blue at her beaten eye and jaw, and the trails of red sticky blood on her white face and down her lower back.

Hershel listened to the sounds of her breathing and lifted her shirt up her abdomen. Her soft breath was shallow and difficult. Daryl cringed at the dark black and purple discolouration on her ribs. The entire right side of her body was bruised and swollen, as though she had been repeatedly kicked or stomped. Hershel felt along her ribs, prodding and trying to judge how many were broken.

"I would say at least two ribs are broken." He said quietly, answering the question on everybody's lips. Hershel's voice broke Daryl from his state of shock. His face crinkled up slightly as he swallowed the hot hard lump in his throat.

"Carol." Daryl said gruffly, making the woman jump. "Don't take the kid away. If she… When she wakes up, she is gonna need ta see him." He admonished himself silently for his slip of the tongue.

Carol had been standing back from the group, shielding the boy from the sight of his broken mother. She nodded to Daryl, who was standing beside Carrie. He looked almost as pale and in pain as the woman on the table, clenching his fists.

Hershel continued, looking at her eye socket. "Her face and jaw seem to be intact, nothing broken." His hand faulted slightly as he opened her eyes to see her pupil reaction. Carrie's startlingly large, green eyes caught him off guard. Her iris' growing brighter as her pupil's contracted in the dazzling daylight. He hopped a little down the table, his crutches discarded to the side. Lifting her left wrist, he looked up to Daryl, recognising his field dressing technique. Torn shirt, tied firmly.

"'t's a mess under there." Daryl informed the doc.

"Ok. Lets get her into the infirmary." Hershel said with a soft nod.

Daryl picked up Carrie from the table. And looked to Carol to make sure she was following with the boy. Carl passed Hershel his crutches and helped the man around the table. The others followed silently back into the cell block.


	10. Chapter 10

_***Hey everyone. Is this getting intense enough for you? Thanks again to NanamiYatsumaki for each chapter review, makes me smile each time. And thank you/hello to our newest reviewer Morbidgypsy. Thank you for your kind words and I am so happy you are enjoying 'Walking Distance'. I really try to stay canon to the characters as I think it makes it feel a lot more real or true, thanks for picking up on that. I am now getting out two chapters a day ;-) I can't seem to slow down. I am a few chapters ahead of what I publish as I like to give each a proper read through and sometimes a rewrite before I post them.**_

_**As always I love hearing from you. Even if it is just a smiley face left by a guest, all reviews are more than welcome.**_

Daryl watched Jack playing with the small collection of toys that had been accumulated for Judith in the gen-pop room. Something about the scene in front of him made him feel both ill at ease and strangely satisfied. He was caring for this small boy while his mom couldn't, but it should be her. A child shouldn't be playing on the floor of a prison while his mother was out cold in a locked cell.

After stitching up what he could and redressing her wrist, Hershel agreed to Rick's request that she be put in a cell to rest. Her black backpack had a few clothing items, a small med kit, a switchblade, another beretta and some non-perishable food items. She had been prepared to get out quick if she had to, but no one could have been prepared for The Governor's psychotic assault. Rick had agreed to leave her with the bag in her cell, but had taken the knife and gun.

Beth was sitting next to Jack, encouraging him to play, rolling a ball back and forth with him. Daryl was sorting out some dinner for the kid, scooping some of the softer vegetables into a bowl from their stew. Walking back over to Jack, a shrill scream echoed throughout the cell block.

"JAAACK!" The bloodcurdling shout, bounced off the walls and struck an icy chill in Daryl's chest. He dropped the bowl on the nearest table as he ran into the cell room.

Taking the keys from his belt, he stopped in front of the last cell. Carrie was on the floor at the bars. She looked up as Daryl quickly shoved the key into the steel lock. He slid the door open and dropped down on a knee to her level. Carrie looked at Daryl through bleary eyes. It took her a moment to recognise him.

"Where's Jack?" She sobbed, her voice a dry rasp.

"Beth!" Daryl yelled over his shoulder. Beth had already picked up the small boy and was following behind Daryl. She got to the cell just after his call. Beth quickly passed Jack to Carrie on the floor, the mother's arms instantly closing hard on the baby boy's body. Relief swept over the woman, followed closely by a flood of pain from her side. Daryl stood up and gave her and her boy some space, ready to step in if she was going to pass out again.

She held her baby to her chest and sobbed deeply, wincing slightly from the pain of her broken ribs. The panic at waking in a locked prison cell had paralysed Carrie until she realised her son wasn't with her. Her scream had burst from her lips and shocked even herself. Only when she saw Daryl did the memory of her assault return to her.

Carrie still held her son on the floor of the prison cell. Jack was beginning to look uncomfortable and was looking around over his shoulder, pushing slightly away from his clutching mother.

Others were now standing at the cell. Hershel, Maggie, Glenn and Carol had joined Daryl and Beth. Concern and curiosity drawing them in.

Daryl stepped into the small cell and crouched down beside Carrie and Jack.

"Hey," He whispered into her ear so his words were only for her. "Yer okay." He stroked her back slowly, trying to ease her tension and grip on her son. He put his other hand to her arm and applied a slight pressure, rubbing his thumb in a small circle on her skin. Carrie's green eyes lifted to Daryl's face. Her pupil's were pinpoints, the green startlingly brilliant. "Come on Carrie."

Carrie closed her eyes as her grip on Jack slackened softly. Her hands slid, inch by inch, down his back, as Daryl rubbed slowly back and forth across her spine. As soon as he was able, Jack squirmed from Carrie's arms and she watched him slip away from her hands. He stood back from her on wobbly toddler legs and turned back to Beth. He ran to her and grabbed her around her legs. Beth smiled a brief, uncertain smile to Carrie and Daryl.

"He's jus' a baby." Daryl reminded Carrie. "He don't mean anything' by it."

Carrie knew that, but it still struck something painful deep inside her chest to see her son favour another woman over her.

Carol's heart felt for the heartbroken mother on the cell floor.

Carrie closed her eyes again slowly and rocked herself a little. Her breath was coming in short, shallow puffs as she swayed slightly back and forth. She dropped her hands down to the floor beside her and eased herself to the ground. She lay down on her uninjured side, eyes closed tight, as Beth picked up Jack.

Uncertain what to do, Beth looked to Maggie and Glenn. Maggie put her arms around her sister and turned her towards the gen-pop room.

"We're gonna get the little guys some dinner." Maggie said to Daryl and the unlistening form of Carrie. Daryl just nodded and returned his attention to the woman lying with her cheek pressed against the concrete floor.

Hershel hopped forward, easing past Carrie's curled up legs and making his way into the cell. With some help from Daryl he managed to get down on the floor. He felt her neck for her pulse and checked her breathing. Her skin felt clammy and was quite pale.

"She's in shock." The doctor spoke softly to Daryl. "Someone should stay with her for a while."

"I'll do it." Carol's voice spoke firmly. She nodded to Daryl. "I'll stay with her. You go get something to eat, and some for her too."

Daryl didn't know what to do. Carrie was a catatonic mess on the prison cell floor and Carol was offering to take care of her. This was beyond his comfort level. He looked back to Carrie on the floor and brushed her hair away from her face.

Watching the tender gesture, Carol felt a tight heat take hold of the back of her throat, but she pushed it aside in her thoughts and stepped forward, helping Hershel to stand up again.

Daryl stood slowly and turned to the cell door. He stepped past Carrie's curled up legs and looked up to Carol's face. He gave her a brief tight nod and brushed his hand along her upper arm.

"I'll be back in a lil' bit." Daryl said quietly to Carol, as he spotted Rick eyeing him from the entry way to the block.

Carol gave him a tight nod and stepped into the cell. As Daryl walked away, she sunk down on the floor beside Carrie. Repeating Daryl's earlier actions, Carol brushed Carrie's hair back from her face.

The woman on the floor had her eyes shut and was breathing in jagged little huffs, almost like sobs.

"This world," Carol whispered softly to the woman beside her. "It gets to us all sometimes. It takes so much from us, and gives almost nothing in return." She studied Carrie's face and hands. Her facial bruises were blooming into greeny-black tinged clouds on her white skin. Her split lip, swollen slightly and a deep red from her biting at the inside of her mouth. Carrie's long, slender hands lay pressed against the concrete. Her wrist's bandaged and fingernails bitten right back into the nail bed.

Carol looked out the cell door, her thoughts changing to Daryl. She sighed and continued on, "Sometimes it gives us just what we need." Carol brushed her fingers softly over Carrie's hair and closed her eyes.

…...

When Daryl returned to Carrie's cell with a bowl of food for her, Carol was sitting on a chair next to the occupied lower bunk. She stood and walked to Daryl.

"I managed to get her off the floor but she still hasn't really come around yet." Carol whispered.

Daryl looked from the woman in the bunk to Carol's face, she was smiling her natural soft smile and the hard edge seemed to be gone from her eyes.

"Are we good?" Daryl asked in a low voice, daring to ask despite fearing her reply.

"I understand, Daryl." Carol nodded slowly.

Daryl didn't quite get what she meant, but instead of questioning it, he just put his hand to Carol's shoulder and turned back to face Carrie.

Carol slowly stepped out the cell door and watched over her shoulder as Daryl sat on the woman's bunk, at her feet. She sighed softly to herself and walked away.

Daryl sat with the small bowl of warm stew in his hands. He just looked over the curled up woman beside him, pale and broken. Placing the bowl on Carol's vacated chair, Daryl sat back further in the bunk. He put his hands up and held onto the bottom of the upper bed.

"Come on Carrie." He muttered. "Time to get movin'. Can't stay in bed the resta ya life."

Carrie took a shuddering slow breath and let out a small sob. 'Fuck, now she's crying.' Daryl thought to himself.

"Stop." He whispered softly, putting his hand on her leg.

Carrie recoiled from his hand. She clutched her arm in to her ribs and shuffled herself into a sitting position. Her face was glossy with tears and perspiration. While the swelling had subsided, her face was still discoloured. Carrie's breathing was ragged and painful, but she still managed to push herself away from Daryl.

"Don't touch me." She hissed breathlessly. She eyed Daryl with venomous green eyes. Her face twisted into a scathing glare. "This is all your fault."

A sick icy feeling struck Daryl in his chest at her words. He had already been blaming himself, but her words still cut him deep. "I didn't… mean for any a this." He mumbled, looking away from her piercing eyes.

"Get away from me." Her voice cracked into a harsh whisper.

Daryl got up from the bed and stood at the bars of the cell. He looked up quickly to her eyes. She had her back against the cinderblock wall. Her head was heavy but her eyes still had their sting.

"Get out." Her voice was low, barely audible.

Daryl didn't move. He just watched her for a moment. He stepped to the bedside and grabbed the chair. Passing her the bowl of stew, he wordlessly dragged the chair outside the cell. Putting the back of the chair to the open door's bars, he sat, facing away from her.

Carrie had taken the bowl without looking at him. She placed it on the ground beside the bed gingerly. Rolling back to her side, she lay down, turning her back on Daryl outside her cell.

Daryl rest his head against the bars with his eyes closed. He didn't care that other were watching him. His thought's drifted back to his conversation with Rick earlier.

After following Rick out in to the yard, away from the ears of others, Daryl waited silently until Rick spoke.

"I have to ask you this Daryl." Rick began slowly, looking up at him through his eyelashes. "Are we going to have a problem?"

"What'sat suppose ta mean?" Daryl asked in a somewhat hostile way, pushing out his chest.

"I don't mean anything by it, Daryl." Rick looked away, raising his hand in an open gesture to Daryl. "I just want to make sure that everyone is going to be safe. When I was an officer I brought in my fair share of people who were in a state, not to different to Carrie in there."

"She just had the shit kicked outta her Rick!" Daryl shouted. "Cuzza me! I led them there. They never woulda known about her if it wasn't for me and Merle's fucking motorbike!" He kicked angrily at a pile of pallets, stacked beside the wall.

"Daryl. That is not true." Rick shot back. "We both know it was only gonna be a matter of time before he found her out there. If it wasn't about you, and he found them, just out in those woods with all her guns and supplies, he would have just killed them and taken it all. Without a second thought. They're only alive because he wanted to hurt you, by turning them, like your brother." Rick shook his head and paced back and forth.

Daryl bristled at the mention of Merle. But Rick's words were sinking in.

"She ain't gonna be a problem." He wiped roughly at his mouth. "I'll make sure."

Rick stepped towards Daryl and put his hand on the man's shoulder. Daryl nodded at Rick, an agreement passing between their eyes.

Now he sat in front of Carrie's cell as she quietly sobbed behind him. She was stifling her crying, but the soft weeping still made it to Daryl and each noise was a painful stab in his chest. The last of the day's sunlight passed over the window bars, nightfall settling over the prison. He just stayed in the chair, hoping that she would fall asleep soon.

…...

The morning came and Daryl took up his watch at the front of the prison. He was up in the guard's tower, leaning against the platform rail, his crossbow at his back. Rolling his stiff neck, wishing he hadn't slept upright in the chair last night. The morning passed uneventfully. It wasn't until after lunch that something caught Daryl's attention.

Carrie walked out of the cell block, Carol by her side holding Jack. Her arms wrapped tightly around herself, Carrie was getting a tour of the yard. Daryl squinted at them, trying to get a better look at the women. They seemed okay. Carol walked slowly beside Carrie, Jack was resting on Carol's hip but was watching his mother, waiting for her to take him.

They took a short turn around the yard and the cars. Carrie had momentarily stopped at Daryl's bike and looked around the open space of the prison. Despite the distance between them, his eyes met hers briefly. She tightened her arms around herself and turned away.

As they walked back to the cell block door, the yard fence to cell block 'D' slid open. Part of the Woodbury group were making their way into the garden yard. Twenty five or so people walked into the paved yard, Carrie instantly backing away.

Daryl ducked back inside the tower and made his way to the ground before running all-out towards the woman with her back against the brick wall near the cars. Carol was still holding Jack while trying to talk to Carrie.

"It's ok Carrie." She cooed. "They are good people. No one is going to hurt you here."

Carrie had slid down the bricks and was shaking her head, her wide eyes watching the group as they poured into the fenced yard.

Daryl got to the women just before Rick entered the yard. Crouching down beside Carrie, Daryl looked up to Carol first.

"Take the kid inside." Daryl nodded at Jack on her hip. "Don't need to see his momma like this."

Carol pursed her lips in tight and looked at Carrie on the ground with concerned, wide eyes.

"Go ahead Carol." Rick spoke up from behind her. "Daryl?" He was asking if this was going to be the problem they discussed.

Daryl ignored Rick and put his hands to Carrie's face, trying to get her large eyes back to his. When she finally met his stare, she seemed to wake from a daze and fall straight into a delusional state.

"There's too many." She muttered, tears filling her eyes. "There's too many. There's too many."

"There's not too many." Daryl consoled. Not knowing what else to do, he just held onto her gaze. "It's fine. They're all good. You don't have to worry 'bout 'em."

"What's she taking about Daryl?" Rick asked, concerned about her unstable rambling.

"It's nothing' Rick." Daryl snapped at him. "She jus' had some trouble with her last group, s'all." Daryl spoke to Carrie again softly. "'s okay Carrie. Jus' calm down, girl."

Hearing her name broke Carrie from her daze. Her eyes turned fierce as she looked up in to Daryl's face. "You." She accused. "You brought me and Jack here. And now we're going to die." She realised his hands were on her face and she brushed him off roughly. "Get off me! We're going to die! We're going to die, and it's all YOUR FAULT!" Daryl tried to grab hold of her again as she pushed him away. Rick stepped down beside her. He put his hands up in a non-threatening way.

"It's okay. No one is going to hurt you." Rick spoke with his calm, authoritative voice. Carrie just looked at him with wide green eyes, like he was the mad one.

Carrie slapped away Daryl's hands and kicked him away from her position on the ground. She scrambled back away along the wall, adding a scrape to the elbow to her list of injuries. Clutching tightly to her broken ribs, Carrie pushed herself away from the wall and to her feet. Daryl and Rick gave her a little space and looked briefly at each other. Carrie slowly backed away, making her way towards the side entrance to the tombs.

"Carrie, jus' stop and wait a second." Daryl asked. She didn't wait. Carrie slipped into the side door with a last glance over her shoulder.

Daryl looked to Rick. "I got it Rick. Just gimme some time with 'er."

"Okay." Rick sighed. "You got it man." He tossed Daryl the torch from his belt. "Just bring her back from the edge."

Daryl hitched his crossbow back up his shoulder and followed Carrie through the door, to the tombs.

…...


	11. Chapter 11

"Hey, are you alright?" Rick asked.

He had caught up to Carol after she had passed Jack to Beth. Looking over her shoulder at Rick she nodded her head with a firm mouth.

"Come over here for a minute." Rick spoke softly, he picked up Carol's hand and walked with her to the cells. They moved into her cell and stood beside the bunks. "You're not okay."

"No. I'm not." She confirmed, watery eyed. After a moment she continued with a sigh. "He is doing the right thing."

"He is. I believe that." Rick nodded slowly. "Doesn't mean it's gonna hurt any less."

Carol stepped forward in to Ricks arms. He held on to her softly and stroked her gently along her shoulders. She took a small shuddering breath and tilted her head back, looking up at Rick as he comforted her. Rick held onto her and smiled at her soft features. His gaze flitted over her blue eyes and small lips. He smiled at the woman in his hands who was the acting mother to his baby girl.

"I'm not okay." She repeated quietly, a small smile softening her face. "But I will be."

_*** I know. Not really a chapter, right? I did something similar in my other fic 'Daryl and Rebecca'. A sort of stand alone, moment in the story, thing. Final chapters coming soon. X.**_


	12. Chapter 12

They had cleared and seeled off the tombs from the open front half of the prison a few months ago. That didn't mean there was no dangers. The dark echoing narrow halls and blackened cells, were hazardous and easy to get lost in.

Daryl moved slowly through the dim space, the beam of his torch doing little to light more than a few yards in front of him. Each corner he turned harboured it's own unique smell of mould or decay, adding to the gloom and ill feeling in Daryl's stomach.

It wasn't something that he would admit to anyone, Daryl could barely acknowledge it to himself, but he needed her. He needed Carrie. She was his.

He didn't know when it happened. Hell, it mighta been when he first came to in her house after getting shot. All he could tell was that her and Jack were his now. His responsibility, maybe even, his family.

But she was slipping. Whatever that dark cloud was in her head, it was threatening to take hold of her and not give her back. Daryl had been able to sense it in her from the time he had first instructed her to go to bed. That night her confusion and disturbed behaviour had made Daryl realise that she was loosing herself out there alone. Her polar emotions, switching at the drop of a hat between happiness and rage, bliss and depression. People can't be alone, despite what they believe. Carrie needed him, whether she knew it or not. Her little boy needed him. Those old familiar feelings of wanting a child of his own had seeped back into his mind and taken hold of him. No matter what he told himself or how much he fought it, the need to love a baby of his own always came back. Jack was his. Carrie was his.

Daryl spat to the floor as he turned a corner, trying to get his head on straight. He held the small beam of light in front of him and proceeded with a jog down the shadowy passages. His free hand hovered at the small of his back, just above the handle grip of his 9mm. He wasn't expecting trouble, didn't mean he was gonna be caught off guard.

He tracked her movements through the disturbed dust and grime on the floor. Through a few open doors and with the occasional noise of something dropping or scrapping on the hard concrete ground. She had found her way to the lower levels of the prison. Daryl stopped outside the ajar door of the basement laundry. A small cry came from the room in front of him. He had tracked her through the tombs and now that he had found her, didn't know how he should proceed.

There was no right way. She was more than upset. Daryl steeled his nerves and just resolved to do what he could to talk her back to them. He held the torch low and pushed the door open.

"Carrie?" He asked quietly, not expecting an answer. Her quiet sob stopped.

Daryl stepped in and looked around the room. Half the room was dimly lit by the high eastern windows, the other half was shadowed, but once Daryl switched off the torch and his eyes adjusted, he could see enough.

The room was similar to the laundry upstairs. A mid sized room with a few large washers and dryers, a couple of stainless steel benches and a wall of shelving units lined with stacks of folded white sheets. The stench of the halls didn't quite seem to make it into the well ventilated room. It was a small respite from the decay beyond the door.

Daryl lifted his crossbow from his back and set it down with the torch on a bench near the door. Carrie was in here somewhere and he needed to approach her with care.

His silent footfalls guided him around the room as he looked under benches and even inside the empty dryers.

"Carrie, please." He implored. "What're ya doin'?"

He let out a small sigh of relief when he found her, sitting curled up on the floor at the end of the linen shelves. Her head was buried into her knees, Carrie's long legs pulled up and crossed in front of her. She held on to herself and was rocking almost unnoticeably.

"I should have warned you." He began. "That was my mistake. I should have told you more about the men who shot at me." Daryl eased down in front of her, his legs crossed as he sat Indian style. He sighed and continued on. "The man who attacked you is dangerous beyond anything else out there now. He has killed some of our people and many of his own. Those folks out there that you were scared'a, they were the few survivors from his townful of people." Carrie still kept her head down as he spoke, but she was no longer shaking from sobbing. Daryl pressed on. "He hurt you an' ya boy to hurt me."

Carrie lifted her head, but her green eyes didn't quite make it to Daryl's. "It doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters anymore."

"What doesn't matter?" Daryl asked in a harsh whisper.

Carrie shook her head. "The world is over Daryl. We're all dead. You just haven't realised it yet. We are all just ghosts and monsters."

Her words set a chill to his bones. Carrie's voice was so hollow it didn't even sound like it came from her lips.

"No. Tha's bullshit." He angered. "You have a baby boy out there. He needs you." He held a tight breath in his chest. "I need you, Carrie."

Carrie frowned lightly at Daryl's words before her eyes lifted to his face and his vulnerable blue eyes. He was bolstered by her attention and pushed on further.

"I need ya. There ain't much in this world worth fightin' for anymore." He brushed his fingertips along her arm and continued. "Every single person up there is surviving for one thing. Each other. That's all that matters anymore. Maybe tha's all that ever mattered, even before it all went to shit." Daryl dropped his hand and hoped that he had gotten through to her.

Carrie wiped her eyes on her forearm. Lifting her arm made a sharp pain jag to her ribs and caused her to wince. She closed her eyes and rest her head back against the cool cinderblock wall for a while. Her quiet breathing and motionless body made Daryl almost believe she had fallen asleep. He had been about to nudge her when she slowly opened her eyes. Daryl breathed a soft relieved breath and got to his feet. Large wet tears rolled down Carrie's hollow cheeks. She licked her lips wet and tried to swallow the hard lump that was resting at the back of her throat. Holding out his hand, Daryl offered to help Carrie to her feet.

She still hadn't said anything. Carrie only blinked slowly and looked at his outstretched hand. Moving slowly, she lifted her arm and put her hand into Daryl's calloused fingers. He grabbed hold of her and eased her up off the ground.

"It's all gonna be okay Carrie." Daryl whispered into her hair as he pulled her into a soft embrace. "I'm always gonna look after you. And Jack." He added.

Carrie's arms were limp by her side. She slowly lifted her hands and put them to Daryl's sides. Carrie shook softly and Daryl held her a little tighter, mindful of her injuries. Carrie slid her hands around Daryl's lower back as he held her against himself for a little while.

Carrie made a small motion in his arms and Daryl relaxed his hold on her. He stepped back, keeping his hands to her upper arms. A sudden tight feeling gripped Daryl's throat and an icy sick feeling settled in his stomach.

Carrie lifted her left hand weakly, pointing Daryl's 9mm at her own jaw.

Daryl pulled his mouth in tight, his face crumpling slightly in a terrible mix of fear and anger. Feeling any move he made was going to be the wrong one, Daryl didn't move a muscle. All he could do was look into her wet, deep green eyes and plead with his heartbroken blue ones.

Carrie felt the warm, heavy weight of the 9mm handgun in her hand. She looked into Daryl's eyes, not knowing herself what she was about to do. Her tears continued to run heavily down her face, her chest constricted as if she couldn't get enough oxygen.

The air in the room stilled. The only sound was Daryl's heartbeat, thrumming loudly from within his chest.

Carrie closed her eyes and dropped her left hand. The gun falling to the floor with a clatter. Daryl slid his hands around her and pushed his lips to her forehead. He held his mouth against her and just breathed her in through his nose. Carrie shuddered in his arms, silent heartbreaking sobs into his shoulder. Daryl brushed his hand up through her hair, stroking her back.

Carrie's fingers wrapped into Daryl shirt. She held him to her as her tears and sobs came to an end. Daryl. Daryl was her tether. If she held on to him, she could stop herself from being swept away by the dark storm inside her mind. She breathed shallow breaths. Her heart beat harder in her chest as he held her against himself.

Carrie tilted her head back slowly and looked at Daryl. He brought his hands around to cup her face, wiping her tears from her cheeks with his rough thumbs. His relief was like a drug, the euphoria calmed his glass-fragile nerves as Carrie's breathing slowed and she relaxed into his hands. Daryl's eyes dropped to Carrie's parted mouth, her sweet breath puffing softly over his skin. His chest tightened and he dropped his lips softly to hers.

The kiss swam through Carrie like silk. The tension in her bones leaving her with his tender touches. Daryl's hands slid from her jaw to her back, holding her softly against his chest. Carrie's lips gently kissed and bit at Daryl. A mixture of burgeoning lust and apology. The passion filled nips turned deeper as Carrie tilted her head and opened up to the tip of Daryl's tongue.

Still clinging to Daryl's shirt, Carrie's knees weakened. He sensed it and moved her slowly backwards, so she was pushed against the wall behind her for support. His hands moved softly down her broken ribs to her hips. Carrie's hands dropped down Daryl's front, between them, to the top of his jeans. Her fingers slipped just inside the waist of his denim.

The sensation of Carrie's fingers just inside his pants heated Daryl's blood. His kiss became a little harder and deeper as he edged his knee between her thighs. Prying her legs open slightly, Daryl settled himself against Carrie. She moaned a little noise in her throat as he kissed her and she ground herself softly against his hard leg. Daryl's hands slid around Carrie's behind, cupping her denim rear and kneaded her flesh.

Her tongue lashed softly at his, as her long fingers began working at his belt. Carrie's hands harried as she unhooked the buckle and unbuttoned his jeans. Daryl seethed softly as her cool hands dropped into his underwear, softly cupping around his hardened length. He dropped his mouth to the uninjured side of her jaw, kissing and sucking at her sweet skin, savouring the feeling of her hand massaging his cock. She moaned quietly before he pulled away from her.

Daryl dropped to a knee in front of her. He put his hands quickly to Carrie's fly and opened the button and zip. He dragged her grey denim and black underwear down her slender, long legs. Getting stuck at her boots but not even bothering trying to get her pants down further. He ran his hands over her soft white skin, watching her reaction to his touch in her eyes, skating up along her thighs to her hips before standing up again. Daryl shoved down his own pants to around his thighs and returned back to her soft, waiting lips.

His hands slipped behind her thighs as he pushed himself again between her legs. Carrie tried to pull herself up Daryl's body, but instead, cried out holding her side tightly. She wasn't being mindful of her ribs, but Daryl was, despite his impulsive actions. He kept his hands away from her torso. He grabbed her hands and wrapped them around his back, under his arms. Returning his palms to her thighs, he gave a soft squeeze before scooping her up and taking her weight, pinning her softly to the cinderblock wall.

Daryl hands and mouth drove away Carrie's pain. His lips pressed against hers, asking her to part her mouth, to kiss him deeper. Carrie tilted her head as she felt the tip of his prick brush at her wet slit. Her eyes fluttered subtly as a thread of electric silk tingled from her stomach to her toes.

Carrie held her arms around Daryl, her fingers tangling in the handfuls of shirt she could grab. Daryl pushed himself forward, sliding precisely into her hot centre. A husky moan escaped Carrie's lips beside Daryl's ear. He pulled back slightly and pushed forward into her again. His vision glazed slightly as the encompassing, tight heat, spread over his cock. He sighed out a jagged breath as he turned his face in to her warm hair. Inhaling her scent, Daryl rocked in to her, back and again.

Carrie felt dizzy. The rush of endorphins from her injuries and the incredible blissful ache of Daryl inside her, combined to make Carrie feel almost drunk. She clung to his shirt, wrapped around his body, moved with Daryl as much as she could. All the while, letting the world tip away from beneath her as the coiling sensation grew tighter in her womb.

Daryl's thrusts became deeper and faster. He groaned softly into her shoulder as he felt himself begin to edge closer to release. Carrie's whimpering soft voice in his ear making his skin break out in goose bumps. His hand slipped a bit in the building perspiration between them. Accidentally dropping her left side a little, Carrie let out a hard cry as she banged her damaged ribs. Daryl growled to himself and stopped, his every nerve throbbing and screaming to continue.

He put his forehead to her cheek, breathing steadily. Turning his head slightly, he noticed the shelves of white sheets beside them. Releasing Carrie's body, he pulled himself away from her and started tossing the sheets open and scattering them on the floor. It wasn't much in the way of comfort but it was better than pushing her up against the hard wall.

The piles of crumpled white linen softened Carrie's drop to her knees. Cradling her side as she turned and sat, she ripped open her boots laces and tried to kick off the leather shoes one handed. Daryl fell to his knees in front of her, tugging off her boots and grabbing onto her denim, dragging it down her thighs. He slid the jeans down her legs and tossed them behind him as he crawled forward over her. Sliding her tank top up her abdomen, he urged Carrie to lie back. She lay herself down on the padded ground using her free arm as Daryl moved up her body.

He kissed her neck, moving along her jaw to her ear. A wave of fluttering tingles ran down Carrie's arms as she listened to Daryl breathing heavily beside her face. His hands slid down her thighs, hooking under her knees and lifting her legs to clasp around his hips, one side at a time. He moved with care, not wanting to hurt Carrie.

Taking his length in hand, he guide himself back to her slick entrance. He turned his head and kissed Carrie on the uninjured side of her mouth as he pushed himself again back into her core. She inhaled deeply, shuddering slightly, and turned her face to Daryl's. He withdrew entirely from her, then pushed himself again into Carrie as she kissed him softly on the lips.

He rest his weight on his elbows, keeping off her body. His arms were under her shoulders but his hands were cradling her neck, fingers tangling in the soft hair at the base of her skull. Carrie's hands were wrapped around Daryl's shoulders from under his arms. She lifted and rolled her hips slowly to meet his soft rocking into her.

Daryl pushed his length inside her, sending electric sparks shooting through her abdomen with each repeated stroke. Carrie pushed her head back into Daryl's hands and the pile of sheets. Daryl pressed his lips to her pulse and dug himself into her harder. Carrie seethed and shuddered slightly, the feeling that emanated from her core, pulsing through her body to her fingertips.

Again, harder, and again, Daryl ground himself into her. The feeling of being so close, being inside her, was too good. He groaned slightly into the flesh under her jaw as his pace quickened and thrusts hardened. Carrie was making small noises in the back of her throat as her blunt, long fingers dug into the flesh on his exposed shoulders.

Her toes curled as the ascending ecstasy rolled through her body from her centre. Each thrust driving her, pushing her closer to the blissful threshold. Daryl's panting mouth on her neck, his large hands cupping her skull, his hard cock filling her and stretching her. Carrie bit at her lips as Daryl pressed his perspiration laced forehead to her shoulder. Her body started shaking beneath him.

His heart was thumping hard, out of rhythm with his strokes. Carrie's body, both soft and firm beneath him, drew everything from him. Daryl's breath puffed out in hot waves over Carrie's chest as he staved off cuming as long as he could. Carrie moaned out loud. Even though unsure whether her cry was pain or bliss, Daryl didn't stop this time. He lifted his face from her collar and looked to see her eyes. Her deep green captured his ice blue as the ecstasy crashed through her body.

Carrie shook and bucked as she held Daryl tighter, the pain in her ribs completely eclipsed by the brilliant, white hot orgasm racking her entire core. Carrie's tight walls convulsed around his length and he groaned heavily as he sunk himself deep in to her. He spilled inside her with his last stuttering thrusts, holding tightly onto her shoulders.

Daryl's energy left him instantly. Even now, mindful of her broken ribs, Daryl lifted himself off of Carrie and untangled himself from her legs, shuddering slightly when he withdrew from her. He lay down beside her on his back, keeping as close to her as possible, letting his own bliss seep through his body.

Daryl's warmth radiated through Carrie from her side. She rolled towards him and tangled her body against his, dragging a handful of sheets over them both. Shaking slightly in her thighs and chest, Carrie breathed in Daryl's scent as he lifted his arms and wrapped them softly around her. Running his hands over her silken hair, he breathed slowly until his heart eased down to a normal rhythm in his chest.


	13. Chapter 13

Daryl knew people were going to start looking for them soon. The last warm, golden light of the day's sunset was fading from the windows. It would only be another 10 minutes and they would be in complete darkness. He held Carrie against him, fingers dragging softly across the top of her back, feeling her smooth skin under his calloused fingertips.

Carrie dozed in his arms, exhausted and wrecked from her emotions and disturbia. She was perfectly beautiful when she slept. Daryl wished the peace she was in could stay with her during her waking hours. Her face was soft and relaxed. She wasn't biting at her lips or her fingernails. The tension and stress released from her body as she slept, pressed against Daryl's side.

Her head was resting on his shoulder. Carrie's body was tucked under his arm, her breath grazing softly across the skin where his shirt was open. Daryl weighing up whether they could stay or if they had to go.

Carrie shifted slightly under his arm. Her hand on his chest curled up slowly, her fingers touching the plastic circle of Daryl's shirt button. Her fingertips skated softly over the rough cotton texture of his top. Tilting her head back, Carrie's tired, dark green eyes looked up slowly to Daryl.

His mouth curled slightly at the corner. His blue eyes scanning her face, pausing briefly at her dark lips. Rubbing his rough thumb in small circles on Carrie's shoulder blade, Daryl turned his face and kissed her tenderly on the forehead.

Adrenalin and passion behind them, Carrie's ribs ached hard in her chest. Her breathing hitched slightly as she moved to sit up. Daryl slid his hand to her shoulder and eased her to her back, flat on the linen clothed ground. Out from under her, Daryl pushed the sheets off himself and got to his knees, hitching his jeans up and doing up his fly.

Carrie cradled her arm into her side and closed her eyes again, resting her head back on the cool sheets. Daryl spotted her jeans and underwear a few feet behind him. He reached over and collected her clothes, as she opened her eyes again, watching him move in the darkening room.

Carrie reached out her hand to Daryl when he turned back around. He picked up her palm in his and moved in close to her side. Putting an arm around her shoulders, Daryl helped Carrie sit up as she winced slightly at the stab in her ribs. Carrie smiled at him briefly and held out her open hand for her jeans.

Daryl smirked to himself as he sat back down beside her, legs crossed, and withheld her balled up clothes behind his back. Carrie frowned slightly with a small curl in her lips.

"What are you doing?" She asked. Her voice was soft and husky, making Daryl's skin break out into goosebumps at the sexy rasp.

"Gettin' your full attention." He grinned slightly. Carrie looked at him puzzled before he continued, his gaze hardening. "We gotta talk."

Carrie's confused smile faded into a mixed expression. Her temporarily, intentionally-forgotten breakdown souring her and mixing with a dose of guilt and sadness. She put her hand to her lips, fighting away the horrible tickle in her throat as her eyes filled with her held back tears. She looked away from Daryl briefly before again picking up his eyes, and giving him a subtle nod.

"Carrie. You and Jack matter to me." He began, hoping more words would follow. Daryl didn't really know what he was going to say to her. He just looked into her large green eyes and let the words come. "This world ain't worth shit anymore. All we have is the people around us. Our family. It don't matter if yer blood or not. That is our family now." He pointed to the roof, gesturing to the people on the floor above. "_You're _my family now." Daryl put his hand on Carrie's linen-clothed leg. He watched his own hand as he gently squeezed her shin and stroked her softly. "You an' Jack. And I'm gonna do whatever it takes to keep you safe. Even if that means 24 hour watch to makes sure ya safe from yerself."

Carrie buckled at his words. Her overwhelming guilt crashing through her chest, strangling her from the inside. She put her hands to her throat, trying to ease the constricting feeling. Shaking her head softly, Carrie found her choked voice.

"I'm broken." She rasped as she closed her eyes.

Daryl watched her as the held back tears finally rolled over her cheeks. He cupped his hands around her face and wiped away the tears quickly before more could follow. Shaking her head slightly to make her open her eyes again, Daryl recaptured her dark green pupils in the fading light.

"Ya ain't the first person ta go crazy in these tombs, and ya ain't broken. Not if ya still want ta be whole again." He spoke slowly, making sure his words were getting through. He held her gaze before letting go of her face and getting to his feet, tossing her the jeans before he walked back to the entry way.

Picking up Rick's torch before it gets to dark to find it, Daryl turned back to Carrie as she tugged on her jeans on the ground. She slid the denim on awkwardly, hitching it up her hips one handed. Daryl stepped behind her and settled back down on the ground, his legs either side of Carrie, his chest to her back.

Daryl felt around Carrie's front and picked up her bandaged wrists tenderly. He spoke softly into her ear as she settled back against him, her legs crossed loosely in front of her. Carrie shivered slightly as Daryl's gravel-rough whisper against the side of her head sent a tingle in her spine.

"There ain't no valium anymore." He spoke softly. "No shrinks, no pills, no hospitals. If you wanna get control a this, ya gonna have to do it yerself." Daryl reached up and brushed Carrie's hair back from her ear. He pushed his lips softly to the side of her head and drew small circles on her forearms with his coarse thumbs

With a soft sigh Daryl whispered more. "When I was seventeen, my brother was in prison, and my old man was beatin' the shit outta me." Carrie tensed slightly at his words but didn't stop him from talking. "I couldn't take it anymore so I got outta there. Ran away. Ended up in a shitty-ass small town on the edge of a Cherokee land reserve. Teenage boy, I only had eyes for this one girl. She was full Cherokee and I was jus' a piece-a-shit white trash kid, but she still made the time of day to talk to me." Daryl smirked slightly at the memory as Carrie settled in against him, feeling the hard muscle of his chest pressed into her back. "She was smart. Told me I was full a rage and talked me back from the edge a couple a times herself. She taught me a few things. Most important 'f all, she taught me how ta focus and calm m'self. How to breath and stay zen."

Carrie rest her head back on Daryl's shoulder, trying to match her breathing with Daryl's. He continued to rub little tight circles softly in her skin and felt her relax back into him.

Carrie's mind just focussed on the feeling of Daryl's heartbeat, thumping against her shoulder blade. It was only a half-beat out of time with her own. Daryl breathed soft and steady against her ear. He closed his eyes and brushed his face gently against hers, his coarse facial hair scuffing softly along her bruised jaw.

Sitting stone still, Carrie and Daryl just breathed for a few minutes together, as the last light left the room and the laundry fell into darkness around them.

Daryl lifted his right hand and brought it to Carrie's face, turning her slightly towards him on her injured left side. He kissed her softly, in the dark, on the side of her mouth.

"If it ever starts ta get too much for ya out there, ya come find me and we'll jus' breath together." He reassured. "I'm always gonna be there for ya."

Carrie held her eyes closed and just nodded against his face. He felt her gesture and kissed her again softly.

Daryl pulled himself away from the quiet warmth of Carrie and picked up the torch from the back of his jeans. Aiming it away behind them, he clicked the beam on and the mute illumination lit up the small area around them.

Daryl got to his feet and picked up Carrie's boots, passing them back to her. He found his 9mm and tucked it into the small of his back, pulling his shirt down over the top of it. He watched Carrie tug her boots on before stepping behind her again. Daryl put the torch in his mouth and bent down to hook her under the arms. He helped her get to her feet and stepped back, giving her room to straighten her top and do up her fly and belt, as he took the torch from his lips and gave it a quick flick around the dark room.

Carrie took in a deep shuddering breath. The painful spike at her inhalation deflating her quickly and making her clutch tightly again to her ribs.

"Come on. We'll go slow." Daryl said as he moved to her good side, lifting her arm and draping it over his shoulders. He couldn't put his hand to her side so he just held onto her belt and waist of her jeans at her hip instead, hooking his thumb inside her pants.

He picked up his crossbow and slung it over his shoulder as they stepped through the door back into the dark, foul passages.

…...

Daryl tapped the small aluminium torch on the steel bar door of the gen-pop room of cell block 'C'. Carl, Hershel, Maggie, Glenn, Michonne and Rick had been milling around at the tables, waiting for Daryl and Carrie's return. A collective look of relief swept over the group, as Carl jogged over to the steel door with the keys.

Unlocking the door, Carl swung it open and stepped back, letting Daryl and Carrie inside.

Daryl was walking her to the cells when Carrie softly squeezed his hand and looked into his eyes. She pulled her hand back from across his shoulders and stood alone, under her own wavering strength.

Carrie didn't know where to look, but she found her eyes couldn't quite seem to meet the faces of the people standing in front of her.

"I'm …sorry." She said in a cracked whisper. "I…" Carrie shook her head, not knowing where to begin.

"It's okay Carrie." Rick nodded solemnly, looking briefly to Daryl's somber face.

Carrie sighed softly and looked up to meet Rick's steady gaze. "I'll get better." She promised.

Rick nodded and Hershel smiled softly to her response. Daryl stepped to her side again and helped her move with a slow shuffle to the cells.

Getting to her cell door, Carrie was startled slightly when she saw Carol sitting beside her bed on the chair again. Carol flinched awake at the sudden presence in the door way. Daryl and Carrie's appearance waking her from her light doze. Standing up quietly, Carol ran her hands over her sleeping thighs and wrapped her arms around her middle, wearing a small, tight smile that didn't quite make it to her eyes. She looked to the bottom bunk where Jack was curled up asleep, facing the open room, breathing softly.

Carrie, following Carol's eyes, stepped into the cell with Daryl behind her. Carol nodded softly and went to leave the suddenly-full little room. Carrie shot out her hand and picked up Carol's wrist in her long fingers. Squeezing it softly she met Carol's eyes and silently thanked her. Carol just nodded again and stepped out past Daryl.

Watching Carol leave over his shoulder, Daryl moved forward closer to Carrie and steered her towards the bunk. He pushed her softly so that she climbed in to the bed, curling up behind her son on her undamaged right side.

Daryl reached up to the top bunk and quietly dragged the mattress from the bed to the floor. He met Carrie's eyes briefly, and gave her a small quirk of the lips in return. He settled down on the floor, his eyes landing on Carrie's fingertips that just breached the side of the bed. Daryl reached up and brushed them softly. Her hand sunk down further over the edge and stretched for Daryl's touch. His calloused fingers wrapped around her hand. Carrie's long fingers curling into his palm as he grazed his thumb over her knuckles. Her hold only softened once she fell asleep. Daryl slipped his hand back from her soft grip and turned to lay on his back.

A soft breath passed his lips as his thoughts faded from Carrie and Jack, into sleep.


	14. Author's note

Author's note:

Well that's it guys… hope you liked it. It's all up to season 4 TWD now. YAY!

Thank you to my regular reviewers - NanamiYatsumaki, MaddyMarie1212, Carriesque, and Leyshla Gisel. And to Morbidgypsy and tie228.

Now is everybody's chance to tell me how you all feel. Did you love it? Like it? Hate it? Despise it? Did I end it well? Did it make sense?

I created, wrote, double-checked, re-wrote and published this story in 14 days. Working that hard deserves a quick comment, doesn't it?

Also, on side note, if this is the first of my fics that you have read, I have another…

'Daryl and Rebecca.'

Daryl D/OC short story. Chapter one is sweet, but story turns darker as it continues. Story is split, set before season 1 and between seasons 2 and 3, working with TWD storyline. Rated M for very adult content, triggers and erotic literature.

I look forward to hearing from all of you.

Thank you again. X.

-Wellficme.

p.s. Even though this story is complete, I still get excited when I see a new review.


	15. special encore chapter

_***Due to public outcry (from my wonderful reviewers) I have specially crafted this one-time-only encore chapter. For those who NEED a HAPPY ENDING!**_

_**Love you guys.**_

_- five months later -_

Daryl brushed the hair back from Carrie's face, tucking it behind her ear as he leaned in close to her. The soft puffs of breath from his mouth, grazed her lips, and sent a brief wave of goosebumps down her spine.

Carrie stepped backwards into her cell, the privacy sheet brushing her hair up and over her shoulders as Daryl kept in step with her. The empty block 'C' echoed with her soft giggle as Daryl's hands skimmed up the sides of her body.

The cool daylight filtered through the white dropped sheet, letting more than enough light into the cell.

"Hey." Daryl whispered before brushing his lips softly against hers.

"Hey." She repeated back against his mouth, as his hands slowly dragged back down her exposed arms.

"How are ya … this morning'?" He asked breathlessly between kisses.

"Ya mean … puking my guts out … while you're out hunting?" She asked in return.

"Hmm." He scoffed and kissed her a little deeper.

"And then … you know … hormones." She rolled her eyes, Daryl's hands slid down her forearms and off the ends of her wrists, landing on her slightly swollen tummy.

"mmm… yeah, well … I don't mind that bit." He replied with a grin as his kisses moved from her mouth to her jaw.

"No, I can tell." She smiled and closed her eyes, wrapping her arms up around his shoulders, lacing her fingers at the back of his neck.

"Hey, yer the one who wore 'the dress'. Don't think I don't know what yer doin' by the way." He whispered gruffly into her ear as he thumbed the thin straps of the dusty-rose coloured sundress.

She laughed softly as his lips pushed again into her pulse, his hands skating back down to her hips. "It's not my fault. You're like a bull to a red flag when I wear this thing." She grinned as she spoke. "Besides, you are the one that picked it up on that run for me."

His kisses moved up from her neck back to her mouth. Carrie ran her fingers up through Daryl's hair as he pulled back a little, smirking as he spoke. "Well I knew those jeans a yers weren't gonna fit ya for much longer."

Carrie pulled him back to her mouth, her lips parting as she kissed him deeper. She took a few steps backwards, dragging Daryl with her towards the back wall of her cell.

"Against the wall again, huh?" Daryl spoke in a sexy growl, his lips brushing lightly over hers with his words.

Daryl's hands dropped to the hem of her dress, his fingers skating softly along her thighs, as Carrie moved away from his mouth and kissed him on his neck and ear. A soft rumble came from the back of Daryl's throat, vibrating under Carrie's lips. She breathed in his scent as his searching fingers of his right hand moved to the inside of her thigh.

"Well, gotta make it quick. Jack's with Beth and Judith, but I'm due back to get lunch started in twenty minutes." She whispered against the side of his face.

"Quick ain't a problem." Daryl smirked as his fingers traced a soft line up the inside of her leg.

Carrie's soft giggle died in her throat as his fingertips found their target. Daryl turned his face in towards Carrie, burying his nose into her hair as she whimpered quietly to his touch. He stroked her softly through her wet panties, feeling her shudder slightly. Daryl kissed her neck, sucking slightly and bitting her playfully. Dropping her hands down onto Daryl's shoulders, Carrie held him against her. His touch stealing her strength and replacing it with a giddy swirl of heady tingles.

In a swift move, Daryl hooked her panties and pushed them aside, sliding his fingers into her slit. Carrie made a small, involuntary, squeaky noise as Daryl held her up against the cell wall and circled his finger around her sensitive clit. Each light strum of his calloused touch to her bundle of nerves sent a jolt of heat radiating from her core to her knees.

Daryl's right hand stroked her sex while his left curled around her back, holding her against him. His hair fell over his closed eyes as he gently scraped his facial hair over the responsive flesh of her neck and collar bone, dotting softly with wet kisses. He loved the way she melted to his touch. Daryl knew all the places she liked to be caressed. Memorising each moan and gasp he had drawn from her lips over the past few months, and exactly what he had done to create it.

Carrie curled her fingers into the back of Daryl's shirt, gripping onto fistfuls of the black cotton. Husky panting into Daryl's ear, rocking her hips subconsciously to his touch. With a sharp breath, Carrie turned her face to Daryl's cheek. Her parted lips grazing softly against his cheek bone as his torturously slow stroking was quickly becoming almost too much.

Daryl eased his strumming and turned his face so that his lips were again brushing lightly across Carrie's. She breathed soft pants as her heavy eyes focussed on Daryl's blue gaze. Her hands flattened against his back and pulled him against her. Daryl pushed his lips to hers, kissing her slowly, deep and lustfully.

Daryl withdrew his fingers from her and instead, hooked his thumb over the top of her panties. His left hand joining his right under her skirt and dragging the thin cotton down her hips. He manoeuvred the underwear over her soft flesh at the back, kneading her curves on the way past. Pulling back from the kiss, Daryl slid her panties down her thighs, letting them fall to the prison floor once they passed her knees.

Carrie held his gaze. The soft blue squint and slight curve at the corner of his mouth sending electric butterflies to her stomach.

Crouching down in front of her, Daryl finally looked away from her green glowing eyes. His hands came up and cupped her slight bump as he softly pressed his face to her navel. Carrie brushed his hair away from his eyes as Daryl just held her for a moment.

Nobody ever saw him like this. Right now was a private, Carrie moment. Daryl had to be strong and gruff in front of the others, he had to be. They needed him to be that man. But not with Carrie. She could see the other side of him. The raw, softer, deeper side, because he had seen hers.

Carrie scrapped her fingernails softly through Daryl's scalp, as she leant her head back against the wall behind her.

"The hell with lunch." Daryl muttered as he turned his face to the side and pressed his cheek against her tummy.

Carrie smiled softly and looked back down at him. Daryl had his eyes closed as he just held her, idly stroking her hip with his thumb. Dropping her hands to his, Carrie held onto the back of his wrists and squeezed softly.

Responding to her gesture, Daryl slid his hands from her hip to the hem of her soft pink sundress. He drew it up her body as he stood, lifting it up over her head. The material of his black cotton, sleeveless shirt pressed against Carrie's exposed body as he leaned in touching her, kissing her again. Her slight pot belly yielding against Daryl's abdomen.

Carrie's hands found Daryl's buttons and began popping them open, slowly sliding her hands down his chest to the next. His lips parted and pressed deeper into hers, kissing her in slow circling bites, as Carrie put her hands to his belt and opened his jeans.

Daryl kept kissing Carrie as he stepped back a little and reached down for his boots, undoing his laces one after the other. This time it was Daryl's turn to direct Carrie around. Kicking off his boots and shrugging back his shirt, Daryl stepped back further, encouraging her to step forward so as not to break away from him. Carrie followed obediently as he stepped backwards towards the bunk, her hands clinging to the shirt she was tugging down his past his biceps.

He shook the shirt off and scooped his arms behind Carrie, pulling her tightly against his body. Her arms were pinned between them and she gasped as he tripped a little on his loose jeans.

"I got ya." He teased in a low grumble as he got his feet back under himself properly.

"I know." She whispered in return. Daryl had her alright. All the way through.

Relaxing his grip around Carrie, Daryl freed her hands and guided her to the bunk with a quirk of his lips to her startlingly tender reply. Carrie's hands slid up to Daryl's neck as he leaned forward and she sat down, moving into the bed.

A slow, easy breath, that could almost be a sigh, passed Carrie's lips as Daryl lay her back and brushed his mouth along her cheek. He kneeled between her legs and held himself above her, the warmth of his skin fanning the flames that were building in Carrie's core. Daryl brushed her hair away from her face and settled down against her, leaning slightly on his left elbow and resting his head on her shoulder. He sighed a deep breath through his nose, against the side of her head as his right hand's fingers traced over her shoulder and then along the side of her soft breast.

Carrie wrapped her legs around Daryl's hips, pulling him in against her as her lips pressed to his ear. She slid her hands from the back of his neck up to his hair as he nuzzled his mouth in her neck. His prick brushed against Carrie's entrance and she hissed softly, Daryl twitching slightly to the feeling of her warmth and wetness at his sensitive tip.

His right hand continued down her body, past her fading scars, to the small space between them. As he took himself in hand, Daryl pulled his face back to kiss Carrie's parted mouth. He breathed in her sweet scent and licked softly at her lips until her tongue came up to meet his.

Carrie's eyes flickered as he eased his hard length forward into her wet slit. The heat and tight pressure around his cock making Daryl groan softly into her mouth. Her right hand stayed in Daryl's hair, holding his mouth to hers, but her left hand dropped swiftly to his shoulder and curled against the firm muscles in his back as he stretched her and pushed in deeper.

A soft whimper escaped Carrie's lips as she pushed her head back into the pillow. Daryl drew back, kissed her beneath her jaw, and ground forward into her again. Keeping himself propped up on his left arm, Daryl moved his right hand around to Carrie's lower back as her hips lifted to meet his next strokes.

Carrie's whimpers changed into quite moans when Daryl's slow thrusts quickened into deep, rolling, harder bucks of the hip. Exactly what her whole body was aching for. He buried his face into Carrie's neck and fanned out hair, his hands splayed against the soft skin of her upper and lower back holding her against him and his staccato rocking.

"Oh… hmm… Daryl…" Her low, breathless utterances sending shivers down Daryl's back, through to his spine, as they passed her panting lips against his ear. A surging bliss making him catch his breath as he felt her twitch deep inside.

A tangle of limbs and heat, Daryl and Carrie held each other tight as he worked his body hard and fast in and against hers. Mindful of the bump between them, Daryl's breathing became studded. Soft groans escaping from his mouth against Carrie's ear. His gravelly voice shooting tingles through Carrie and echoing slightly around the open cell block beyond the hanging sheet.

Carrie clawed softly at his skin and through his hair, as her hips ground her against his pelvic bone with each faster thrust. Daryl breathed heavily in her ear, no longer of the mind to breath through his nose. Shuddering waves of heat and heaven moved beneath Carrie's skin. Everything inside her boiling and rolling as absolute pleasure pulsed through her body and bones.

Daryl could feel how close she was. Her twitching, her soft whimpering, her sharp, short, panting breaths. Each rock of her hips and soft scrape of her nails across his back made Daryl pray that he could hold off, just until she gets there. But, good lord, she felt so good. And she was his.

The thought rang through Daryl, gripping something tight in his chest. He pulled his face back from her neck with a sharp breath as he bucked hard into her. Carrie's eyes snapped open and looked into his. Inky green finding icy blue. Blinding ecstasy ignited in her core and shot through her body. Something between a whimper and a howl escaped from her mouth as her centre closed and gripped on to Daryl's dick. Her body arched back and he pushed his forehead to her collarbone.

"God… unghh…" Daryl growled, pulling Carrie's body against his and trying desperately to get as many last quaking stabs as he could from himself, shooting his cum deep inside her. His head turned and buried under her jaw.

Daryl's breath puffed hard over her slightly sweating skin. His own perspiration and heat warming the space between the two bunks. Their bodies eased back to the mattress, Daryl settling his spent body against Carrie's. Chest heaving and core twitching, Carrie's mind blanked as she just forgot about everything except the beautiful man on top and inside her. Her hands slowly wrapped around him with the last of her energy, gripping his clammy skin and hard muscles. She slowed her breath and took in Daryl's scent of fresh sweat and the traces of salt and dirt from his hair.

Trailing her fingertips lazily over his scarred back, Carrie could only describe herself as… happy. The world beyond their caged home was a horrible and terrible place filled with terror and nightmares. Stepping out into the yard reminded you of that every day with the hissing and sickening moans of the dead beyond the fences. But right here, right now, she had something that was exceptional and perfect.

Daryl lifted his face from it place at her neck with a soft brush of his lips to her jaw. He twisted his body so that he was laying on his side, still in Carrie's arms. Her legs tangled with his as a soft breeze from past the cell door curtain, tickled down her exposed back. Daryl's hands skated softly over her goosebump-laced skin and urged her closer to him, giving her warmth and so much more. As Carrie soaked in his body heat, she couldn't help but smile slightly to herself.

"hmm." Daryl smirked, bringing his hand up to her soft brown hair and cupping the back of her head.

"What?" She asked, her smile widening and fingers tapping against his back.

Daryl considered her for a moment. His eyes roved over her skin, dotted with soft freckles you couldn't even see until you were this close. He took in her deep green eyes, not an emerald green, more like a 'nature green'. The colour of ferns and apples and moss and everything that made him feel at home. Her dark lips curled into a soft grin and made him hungry again for her kiss.

Carrie was mother to his child, mother to Jack. She was his lover, his friend, and his confidant. There was nothing in this unearthly world he wouldn't do to keep her safe. She had found her peace. Made a home for her son and herself. Others had not only come to trust her, but rely on her. Daryl needed Carrie as much as she needed him.

She sighed a little, still grinning softly at his quirked lips. "We should get going soon." She whispered. "People will be looking for us."

Daryl tightened his arm around her back and stroked her hair as she settled into his embrace.

"Not jus' yet."


End file.
